4-2 Watters & Powell Flashcards
How many animals are in the care of zoos internationally?
over 1,000,000
how many visitors see the zoo annualy?
hundreds of millions
What does personality play a role in?
- structuring animal interactions and communities
- important for long term viability of populations
Where has thevast majority of research into animal personality conducted?
Why here?
The vast majority of research into animal personality has been conducted on
captive animals where longitudinal observations of the same individuals in a variety of
situations and settings are possible.
What is an advantage of zoos and aquariums in research
know them very well
keepers see them respond to lots of stimuli so can gauge how consistent behavioural traits are and see how they are manifested
zoos let us see how personality is inherited and shaped by the environment
Yet there are few data on how
____, _____, and ___ interact.
Yet there are few data on how
personality, environment, and welfare interact.
Yet there are few data on how
personality, environment, and welfare interact.
what is the best place to address this gap
zoos
With approximately ____million people visiting just Association of Zoos and
Aquariums accredited institutions in the United States each year,
With approximately 150 million people visiting just Association of Zoos and
Aquariums accredited institutions in the United States each year,
We felt that there were three primary roles that we ask
animals to fill in zoos:
be exhibit animals, breed (and successfully rear offspring), and
act as program animals
Researchers have typically used the terms _____, _____, and
____ ____ more or less interchangeably
Researchers have typically used the terms personality, temperament, and
behavioral types more or less interchangeably
Researchers have typically used the terms personality, temperament, and
behavioral types more or less interchangeably
why?
because we all agree that we are
interested in behavioral differences across individuals that are consistent over time and
across contexts or situations
Historically, ‘‘personality’’
was a term reserved for ________________________________________________, whereas ‘‘temperament’’ was
more commonly used to describe _______________________________
Historically, ‘‘personality’’
was a term reserved for the studies of adult humans, whereas ‘‘temperament’’ was
more commonly used to describe behavioral differences among young children and
animals
Historically, ‘‘personality’’
was a term reserved for the studies of adult humans, whereas ‘‘temperament’’ was
more commonly used to describe behavioral differences among young children and
animals
what does this reproresent?
This probably represents more of an anthropocentric bias than an empirical
distinction,
What did Box (1999) argue temperament and personality refers to?
Box [Box, 1999] argued that ‘‘temperament’’ refers to behavioral
differences that have more of a genetic basis (a behavioral genotype), whereas
‘‘personality’’ includes behavioral differences that also have a non-genetic basis (the
behavioral phenotype).
zoos generally decry anthropomorphic descriptions of animals, ascribing an animal a
personality is indeed not an anthropomorphic exercise
why is this not an issue in personality
Rather, the assumption of
anthropomorphism is misguided and occurs because the tools that have been used to
study personality in animals are in many cases modifications of tools that were used
to develop theories for and study the dynamics of personality in humans
Studies of
animals [Gosling and John, 1999] often reveal that the structure of their personalities
is similar to that proposed in the ___ ____ ____ of human personality
Studies of
animals [Gosling and John, 1999] often reveal that the structure of their personalities
is similar to that proposed in the Five Factor Model of human personality
The Five Factor Model includes what factors?
The Five Factor Model includes the factors:
extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is
commonly used in humans and includes _____dimensions
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is
commonly used in humans and includes four dimensions
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is
commonly used in humans and includes four dimensions
what is each factor composed as
Each factor
or dimension of personality is composed of facets, which are correlated categories of
behavioral traits. These traits are measured in personality assessment using
behaviors as indicators
what are extraverted indiviudals like
Extroverted individuals may be gregarious, sociable, and/or
assertive
Similarly, the approach favored by behavioral ecologists, while making no
assumptions regarding psychological processes, tends to find five descriptive trait
continua that are the basis for animal personalities [Re´ale et al., 2007]:
what are they?
shyness–
boldness, exploration–avoidance, activity, sociability, and aggressiveness
These two approaches are referred to in the literature
as ____animal behavioral tendencies and ____animal behavior
These two approaches are referred to in the literature
as rating animal behavioral tendencies and coding animal behavior
The majority of
all published studies (___%) employ the _____method [Gosling, 2001], while the
majority of studies performed in zoos employ the ____method.
The majority of
all published studies (74%) employ the coding method [Gosling, 2001], while the
majority of studies performed in zoos employ the rating method.
what does the rating method rely on?
The rating method relies on experts familiar with both the subjects and a larger
sample of the species to ascribe values to individual’s behavioral traits.
Most often,
deploying this technique means asking persons who are very familiar with the subject
animals to consider each subject animal in relation to other animals of the species
with whom the rater is familiar.
Because rating relies on cumulative experience and impression, it is a
______approach to measuring animals’ personalities.
Because rating relies on cumulative experience and impression, it is a
subjective approach to measuring animals’ personalities.
what is naturalistic rating?
raters
very familiar with the species are asked to rate animals on the behavioral traits of
interest after observing them for only a short period of time, perhaps as little as
10 min.
are the raters familiar with subjects in naturalistic rating?
the rater is not generally familiar with the subjects as in the
cumulative experience approach.
Most often, raters answer questionnaires to
describe the behavior of the animals of interest
As such, the technique requires only
a small amount of the rater’s time to obtain the necessary data to evaluate animal
personalities. However, the proper design of the questionnaire requires a large
amount of work prior to deployment.