The textbook presents the questions included in the basic training course "Zoopsychology and comparative psychology", which is based on ideas about the origin and evolution of the psyche, developed by the domestic psychologist A. N. Leontief . External causes of behavior, biological bases of perception, various forms of learning in animals, as well as biological bases of social behavior are considered. A detailed description of the instinctive forms of animal behavior is given, the theory of instincts developed by the founders of K. ethology is presented. Lorenz and N. Tinbergen, analyzes the problem of congenital and acquired behavior . For students studying the disciplines "Physiology of higher nervous activity", "Psychophysiology", "Anthropology" and "Psychogenetics" .