Personality in Animals Flashcards
Define the two dimensions of personality from psychology and neuroscience.
Temperament: fixed, innate, genetic, inherited, “biological” dimension of personality.
Character: dimension of personality modulated by learning, experience, the environment.
Dugatkin’s definition of personality is restrictive and functional. What does this mean?
Focus on individual strategies, or at least the impact of individual differences on behavioural strategies.
Diamond (1957), in his book “Personality and Temperament” reserves a full chapter for _____ and _____ and uses _____ terminology as a base for his discussion.
Cats; dogs; Pavlovian.
Pavlov (1955) had a typology of the dog’s nervous system based on what?
Activity-reactivity to stimuli and their conditionability.
What were the typologies of dogs’ nervous systems Pavlov (1955) proposed? What is the origin of this typology?
Weak nervous system: “Melancholic” dogs
Strong nervous system: two sub-types; Balanced - Mobile: “Sanguine” dogs, Slow: “Phlegmatic” dogs; Unbalanced: “Choleric” dogs.
Hippocrates, Galen.
Réale et al. (2007) proposed what five typologies?
Shyness/boldness: response to risky situations.
Exploration (approach)/avoidance: response to novel situation.
Activity (in non-risky and non-novel situations).
Aggressiveness (towards conspecifics).
Sociability (towards conspecifics).
Gosling (1998) proposed what five personality traits for the spotted hyena?
Assertiveness.
Excitability.
Agreeableness (human-directed).
Sociability.
Curiosity.
Monomorphic species have low play and high sibling aggression; oligomorphic species have moderate play and moderate sibling aggression; polymorphic species have high play and low sibling aggression.
Which canids belong in each category?
Monomorphic: most vulpines (fox-like).
Oligomorphic: most canines (coyotes, jackals).
Polymorphic: wolf, African wild dog, bush dog, dhole.
The situational view combines what perspectives by which people? What does it suggest?
Evolutionary approach (D.S. Wilson) and situational specificity theory (Walter Mischel).
Cross-situational consistency in personality theory may be a myth. We should look at “situational specificity.”
Shy-bold continuum provides high predictability, confirmed by studies by whom? Define boldness and shyness in the context of the continuum.
Kagan studies.
Boldness: risk taking, sensation seeking (Zuckerman studies), high sociability, leadership, dominance, initiative.
Shyness: tame behaviour, “relaxation seeking” (inhibited), low sociability, conformity, subordinance, following.
Describe personality differences between “fast” birds and “slow” birds.
Fast: aggressive, approach novel objects, form foraging patterns.
Slow: nonaggressive, avoid novel objects, no foraging patterns.
Testing personality relies on what three components?
Consistency.
Repeatability.
Heritability: lab experiments –> behavioural genetics.
Field research provides what?
Knowledge of genealogies.
Keeper surveys were used by Carlstead et al. (1999) to study what?
Traits associated with reduced breeding success.
Réale et al. (2007) and Svendsen & Armitage (1973) used what technique to measure their respective theories?
Mirror image simulation.
How can comparative research help study personality?
Comparison with natural behaviours in natural environments.
A behavioural syndrome is what? What personality does it equate to?
Behave predictably across contexts and time.
Context-independent personality.
A behavioural syndrome is not the same as a behavioural type. Why is this?
Refers to particular configuration an individual expresses, therefore property of an individual.
List four strategies to study behaviour syndromes (Bell, 2007).
“Puzzling behaviour” approach.
The “candidate behaviour” approach: looking for relationships between behaviours that are part of a syndrome in other species.
The proximate or “bottom-up” approach: genes, hormones, neurotransmitters, etc.
The ecological approach: role of environment.
List five examples of domain-specific individual differences for the candidate behaviour approach.
Shy–bold axis.
Proactive–reactive axis.
Aggressiveness.
Neophobia.
Exploratory behaviour.
_____ in the phenotype is important to sociobiology.
Variability.
What is a fitness consequence of bolder males?
Have increased reproductive success but at a survival cost; trade-off in fitness consequences.
Watters & Meehan (2007) suggested personality is an important factor in post-release survival. What are the two steps they proposed?
Step 1: release the ones that have appropriate trait for survival.
Step 2: release the others when that population established.
