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Nonhuman Primates Personalities Are Not Anthropomorphic Projections

Summary By: | Published: September 12, 2012
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes
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ABSTRACT ONLY Only an abstract of this article is available
EXTERNAL STUDY This is a summary of an external study
This study has disproven the argument that personality similarities between humans and primates is the cause of anthropomorphic projections and argues that personalities similarities are derived evolutionarily.

This study evaluates if humans are similar to nonhuman primates in their personality traits, or if it is just a case of anthropomorphism that had led us to believe that there are similarities. To evaluate this, researchers had humans who knew and worked with primates in zoos and sanctuaries take personality questionnaires about the nonhuman primates. Researchers used a variety of statistical methods to calculate differences between humans’ evaluations of the same nonhuman primate and to measure general conformity to human personality traits, including dominance, agreeableness, and extraversion, among others. The study concluded that biases and anthropomorphic projections did not account for the personality dimensions found in the primates studied, meaning that human personality traits are evolutionarily derived from other primates.

Excerpt from Article Abstract:

“Ratings of chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, and orang-utan, Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo abelii, personality reveal dimensions resembling those found in humans. Critics have argued that this similarity derives from anthropomorphic projection or other rater-based effects. We developed two forms of data reduction analyses to determine whether these dimensions can best be explained by the inherent tendencies of the animals (e.g. orang-utans that are curious are playful) or anthropomorphic projections of raters (e.g. believing that orang-utans that are curious should be playful).”

“We found that personality dimensions derived after differences between rater means and rater*item interactions had been removed from ratings replicated the previously discovered dimensions. Conversely, we found a different set of dimensions when analysing items from which differences between animal means and animal*item interactions had been removed. Finally, we used multilevel factor analysis to examine whether the published structure was replicated when we extracted factors based on the within-level animal differences in item scores effects while allowing between-rater differences to covary freely…”
“These analyses confirmed that personality similarities between humans and great apes are best explained by genetic and phylogenetic affinity and not by anthropomorphic artefacts.”

An article discussing the study can be found here.

Note that this research study involves surveys of researchers and others who are involved with animals used for experimentation (along with zoos and sanctuaries). Faunalytics does not condone or endorse any animal research; we post this item (and others like it) with the hope that these findings can assist advocates in their work to help animals. For a description of how we select items for the HumaneSpot.org database, please click here.

External Link:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S00033...
Meet the Author:
Faunalytics is a nonprofit research organization dedicated to helping animals by providing useful information to advocates to help them increase their impact.

Citations:

Alexander Weiss, Miho Inoue-Murayamab, James E. Kingc, Mark James Adamsa & Tetsuro Matsuzawad, The University of Edinburgh, Kyoto University, University of Arizona, 2012 Worldwide

Tags:

Other Topics Wild Animals English Psychology Zoos Primates

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