Personality is not just a human trait

WHAT is the major topic of the banter at your workplace coffee time? Gossip about other people, no doubt: what other people are getting up to; what they are like; their personalities.

Pioneering studies into animal personality took place in the 1970s but soon fizzled out as "anthropomorphism" became a dirty word. In the last few years, however, researchers have begun to see the value in using our own empathy and ability to form accurate impressions of others with very limited information - for example, looking at a person’s bedroom, or even their handshake. Scientists are now making use of their subjective side and are undertaking serious studies of animal personality and emotion.

Several of these researchers gathered last week at Stirling University to give papers at a symposium on "Animality" - organised by Dr Hannah Buchanan-Smith of the university’s psychology department.

But why should we bother studying the personalities of animals? "Because animals don’t usually mask their emotions and temperaments in the way humans often do," says Professor Jim King of the University of Arizona, "they offer us an opportunity to look at how personality traits influence behaviour."

King, who is currently on sabbatical at the University of Stirling, studied personality in chimpanzees and rated traits in the same way that researchers had previously done for humans. He found that chimpanzees have an extra personality combination not usually found in humans, and dubbed it the "mad dog" factor. These "mad dog" chimpanzees, usually males, are aggressive but also emotional and erratic - and their behaviour does not mellow with age as is the case in humans.

So why should chimp males have different personality types to their Homo sapien cousins? "We can only speculate but it’s probably to do with their mating system," says King. "Chimpanzee females can mate with many males and if a chimp male is to get exclusive sexual access to a female he needs to be able to stay dominant to other males. One way of doing this is to be unpredictable and erratic." Human males, because we pair-bond - at least for a while - cannot usually get away with behaving like this.

So how do we get our personalities? We can all see how character types can run in families - "He’s just as stubborn as his father" - but is this down to our genes or how we are brought up?

"It’s a bit of both," says Dr Phyllis Lee of the University of Cambridge, who is soon to take up a post in the psychology department at Stirling. "Genetic studies of personality heritability on species as diverse as great tits and vervet monkeys - as well as humans - are showing a 50/50 divide between the influence of genes and environment," she says.

Lee has studied the behaviour of African elephants in Kenya for more than two decades, and much of her research has centred on a family unit led by the great matriarch Echo, who was recently featured in the BBC documentary Echo of the Elephant. Echo and the other ten adult females in her group were rated by observers measuring three personality components.

Unsurprisingly for such a successful matriarch, Echo scored highly on the knowledge and leadership component. So did her daughters, so it seemed that Echo had passed on her responsible and caring nature to her offspring.

But, as with many families, there was a "black sheep": Erin, Echo’s eldest surviving daughter. "Erin is quite eccentric, and it’s hard to say why she doesn’t fit the family mould," says Lee. "She has been attacked by a group of females from another family. It seemed that they, too, perceived her as strange, and bullied her just like an odd child at school." Echo’s next eldest daughter, Enid, gets more of her mother’s attention and Lee suspects that Enid will eventually take over the matriarch role.

Personality studies can have direct benefits for the animals themselves. Zoos and even farms are increasingly employing research on animal personalities to help them manage their animals and ensure their welfare.

"Behavioural profiling may be of practical benefit to zoos, particularly in relation to captive breeding and reintroduction," says Dr Sheila Pankhurst of Anglia Polytechnic University. Pankhurst cites several examples where studies of temperament have informed decisions about animal management, such as maximising breeding success in captive black rhino, and increasing the survival of swift foxes in a reintroduction project.

This is just the beginning for animal personality research. Professor Tim Birkhead of Sheffield University in a recent lecture said: "Research into individual differences in behaviour is a very important area for animal behaviour research to be heading now."

The Animality symposium was sponsored by The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW), a charity which supports animal welfare in science. For more details, visit www.ufaw.org.uk