EC Psychology And Psychiatry

The article discusses the new trend of having wild animals (big cats, foxes, ferrets, etc.) in some homes, and it turns out that since they are raised from childhood, loved and cared for, they behave like pets (dogs and cats). The question is raised whether these animals can still be considered domestic or not. To solve, characteristics (concepts) are set that allow one to distinguish between wild and domestic animals, and the question is asked whether they can be applied to this case. To understand this new class of animals, the concept of “anthropic living” is introduced and it is shown that their psyche differs from the psyche of wild animals and is closer to domestic ones. An explanation is offered for the experiments of geneticist Dmitry Belyaev on the domestication of silver foxes. The author argues that the evolution of foxes was influenced by two factors - not only genetic selection, as Belyaev believed, but also the influence of the environment created by man, an environment conducive to the formation of anthropogenic creatures. At the end of the article, Belyaev’s hypothesis, according to which we are “self-domesticated” monkeys, whose innate psychological inclinations, behavior and social structure have radically changed under the influence of selection for reduced aggressiveness towards relatives, is compared with the author’s hypothesis about the role of signs in the origin of man. He shows that domestication occurred as a result of the transition of hominids to “paradoxical behavior,” which required the creation of a sign system based on a signaling system. The latter allowed hominids to act contrary to biological evidence at the command of the leader. A necessary condition for this was the imagination conditioned by signs, which helped to invent the first tools

 Keywords: Man; Wild Animals; Domestic Animals; Origin; Psyche; Behavior; Environment; Foxes; Experiment; Genetics

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