Gordon Burghardt is a play scholar whose work is both rigorously scientific and startlingly original. The Genesis of Animal Play (MIT Press, 2005) is a comprehensive, detailed examination of play in a wide variety of species, including humans, and explores both the origins and the evolution of play behavior. He is a prolific author, publishing frequently on surprising topics like recognizing play in fish as well as broader studies of how play behaviors relate to overall animal behaviors and social systems. Recent studies include theories on the evolution of fair play behaviors and comparative studies of animal play. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in Biopsychology. He is an Alumni Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Most Influential Work:
- The Genesis of Animal Play (MIT Press, 2005)
View all books and articles on our site by Gordon Burghardt:
- Creativity, Play, and the Pace of Evolution
- Play, animals, resources: The need for a rich (and challenging) comparative environment
- Why can’t we all just get along? Integration needs more than stories
- Play in fishes, frogs and reptiles
- Synthetic Ethology and the Evolution of Cooperative Communication
- The janus-faced nature of comparative psychology – strength or weakness?
- A Behavioral Biology for the Future
- Perspectives – Minimizing Observer Bias in Behavioral Studies: A Review and Recommendations
- Animal Awareness. Current Perceptions and Historical Perspective
- Group selection and the group mind in science
