Animal psychology in Brazil: its founder and its foundation

Abstract

This paper describes the personal and professional trajectory of Prof. Walter Hugo de Andrade Cunha, who introduced Animal Psychology and Ethology in Brasil, and the course of their development and unfolding since then, in terms of teaching and research. The sources of information were interviews with Prof. Cunha and with some of his students, and files on the research production and on the careers of former students of Prof. Cunha and of their graduate students. We suggest relations between the personal and professional life history of Prof. Cunha to illustrate the evolution of his theorization in Psychology and of the method he created to teach and to supervise and to clarify his role in the diffusion of Animal Psychology and of Ethology in Brazil. The paper includes two bibliographies, relative to Prof. Cunha's own production and to his students' production of Master and Doctoral dissertations.