Animal Personality

Question 1

Pet owners

Answer 1

• more open and conscientious
• might project traits onto pets
• anthromorphism

Question 2

Pavlov and animal personality

Answer 2

• some dogs excitable, reactive

- others less energetic

Question 3

Gosling, Kwan, John (2003)

-A Dog’s got personality

Answer 3

• coded dog behavior, owner coded behavior, had friends of owner and dog rate personality of dog and owner
• high internal consistency (so you can reliably measure dog personality
• peer and human were fairly reliable in judging human or dog (0.45-0.76)
• owner rating of dog and coded behavior had moderate (0.2-0.3)

Question 4

Gosling Hyena personality

Answer 4

• rated behavior of hyenas among different dimensions
• used factor analysis
• assertiveness
• excitability
• agreeable
• sociability
• curiosity

Question 5

Cichlid personality

Answer 5

• analyze behavior
• factor analysis
• mirror test (different ages)
• consistency within age range
• correlation between how likely it was to bite the mirror at two time points grew stronger with age

Question 6

Octopuses

Answer 6

• alert, threat, and feeding tests
• factor analysis
• activity
• reactivity
• avoidence

Question 7

Sharks

Answer 7

-sociability (do they stay in group or depart when a threat is present)

Question 8

Mice

Answer 8

-explore or stay in sheltered area

Question 9

Cockroach

Answer 9

-shining light and shaded region (do they quickly go to shaded region?)

Question 10

why study animal personality?

Answer 10

-evolutionary function of personality

Question 11

Peter and Rosemary Grant

Answer 11

• Galapagos finches
• beak size
• after drought, average beak size changed accordingly
• different environmental stressors have different effects on survival

Question 12

Robert Sapolsky

Answer 12

• troops lost alpha males
• personality group changed
• more interaction with males of adjacent rank, lower rank, neighbors, and grooming behavior (more egalitarian)
• culture/personality changed when environmental pressures affected the population

Question 13

Are pets comforting?

Answer 13

• participant with pet or friend or stranger
• physiological measures
• interpretation inconclusive

Question 14

Do people choose pets that reflect or complement their personality? (Gosling and Bonnenburg, 1998)

Answer 14

• web survey to rate own and pet personality
• according to owners, cats are more neurotic than dogs
• cat owners are slightly more neurotic than dog owners