Opinion: Which animals have personality?
Human personality generally refers to coherent individuating patterns in affect, behavior, and cognition. We can only observe and measure behavior, from which we then infer personality and other psychological processes (affect, cognition, etc.). We emphasize that the study of personality always expl...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Personality Neuroscience |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2513988623000093/type/journal_article |
| _version_ | 1827357763784671232 |
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| author | Ralph Adolphs Yue Xu |
| author_facet | Ralph Adolphs Yue Xu |
| author_sort | Ralph Adolphs |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Human personality generally refers to coherent individuating patterns in affect, behavior, and cognition. We can only observe and measure behavior, from which we then infer personality and other psychological processes (affect, cognition, etc.). We emphasize that the study of personality always explains or summarizes patterns not only in behavior but also in these other psychological processes inferred from behavior. We thus argue that personality should be attributed only to nonhuman animals with behaviors from which we can infer a sufficiently rich set of psychological processes. The mere inference of a biological trait that explains behavioral variability, on our view, is not sufficient to count as a personality construct and should be given a different term. Methodologically, inferring personality in nonhuman animals entails challenges in characterizing ecologically valid behaviors, doing so across rich and varied environments, and collecting enough data. We suggest that studies should gradually accumulate such corpora of data on a species through well-curated shared databases. A mixture of approaches should include both top-down fit with extant human personality theories (such as the Big Five) as well as bottom-up discovery of species-specific personality dimensions. Adopting the above framework will help us to build a comparative psychology and will provide the most informative models also for understanding human personality, its evolution, and its disorders. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T05:45:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-51e9d20e48fe4b978465c6f45a7b2fac |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2513-9886 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T05:45:37Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Personality Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-51e9d20e48fe4b978465c6f45a7b2fac2024-02-05T09:32:34ZengCambridge University PressPersonality Neuroscience2513-98862024-01-01710.1017/pen.2023.9Opinion: Which animals have personality?Ralph Adolphs0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8053-9692Yue Xu1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2366-8807Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USADivision of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USAHuman personality generally refers to coherent individuating patterns in affect, behavior, and cognition. We can only observe and measure behavior, from which we then infer personality and other psychological processes (affect, cognition, etc.). We emphasize that the study of personality always explains or summarizes patterns not only in behavior but also in these other psychological processes inferred from behavior. We thus argue that personality should be attributed only to nonhuman animals with behaviors from which we can infer a sufficiently rich set of psychological processes. The mere inference of a biological trait that explains behavioral variability, on our view, is not sufficient to count as a personality construct and should be given a different term. Methodologically, inferring personality in nonhuman animals entails challenges in characterizing ecologically valid behaviors, doing so across rich and varied environments, and collecting enough data. We suggest that studies should gradually accumulate such corpora of data on a species through well-curated shared databases. A mixture of approaches should include both top-down fit with extant human personality theories (such as the Big Five) as well as bottom-up discovery of species-specific personality dimensions. Adopting the above framework will help us to build a comparative psychology and will provide the most informative models also for understanding human personality, its evolution, and its disorders.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2513988623000093/type/journal_articleanimal personalitybehaviornonhuman personality |
| spellingShingle | Ralph Adolphs Yue Xu Opinion: Which animals have personality? Personality Neuroscience animal personality behavior nonhuman personality |
| title | Opinion: Which animals have personality? |
| title_full | Opinion: Which animals have personality? |
| title_fullStr | Opinion: Which animals have personality? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Opinion: Which animals have personality? |
| title_short | Opinion: Which animals have personality? |
| title_sort | opinion which animals have personality |
| topic | animal personality behavior nonhuman personality |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2513988623000093/type/journal_article |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ralphadolphs opinionwhichanimalshavepersonality AT yuexu opinionwhichanimalshavepersonality |