Personality Dimensions In Nonhuman Animals

The five-factor model is a common ground between Raymond Cattell’s 16 personality factor and Hans Eysenck’s three-factor theory. The five-factor model was designed by Robert McCrae and Paul Costa. The five-factor model consist of five different main personality traits known as the big five. Personality is fundamental traits, or characteristic behaviors and conscious motives. The five personality traits are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and neuroticism. These are also known as OCEAN. These traits are used to predict individual’s attitude and behavior. Each factor characterizes the level between two extremes. Openness is creativity, intelligence, perceptive, flexibility, imaginative, the and the ability to try new things (Fuhrman, 2015). Conscientiousness is to be future oriented, organized, and goal driven. Extraversion is warmness fun-loving, sociable, affectionate, and optimistic emotionality. Agreeableness is nurturing, emotionally supportive, and trustworthy. Neuroticism is commonly characterized by stress, anxiety, and depression as well as secure, calm and self-satisfied. Researchers believe that environmental and biological factors can influence individual’s personality. These traits are stable but can change over time. People become more conscientiousness and agreeable as they get older, and less neurotic, open, and extraverted. The outcome of clinical studies and research settings can be guessed using these five personality traits (Ilie,

Dispositional personality theories are quite different from biological personality theories. The two will be compared and dissected in this article. The Big Five Personality Test will also be analyzed and how it is used to study personality will be examined.

The five-factor model (FFM) is a contemporary construct describing personality. It incorporates five traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism also referred to as OCEAN. Within each dimension, there are specific personality attributes, for example, openness includes subcategories of feelings and actions. The FFM was influenced by Cattell’s 16-factor model (1957) and shares traits with many other personality theories such as Eysenck’s PEN model. There has been an ongoing debate discussing how many factors appropriately represent the brain structure of personality, suggestions have varied from 2-7, recently Almagor et al. (1995) advocated that a 7-factor model unfolds when evaluative traits are involved. Costa & Mcrae (1992) claim that the FFM is the best theory of personality, however, the model has received much criticism. Through examining different aspects of the model its credibility can be explored.

“One cannot look deeply into the eyes of an animal and not see the same depth, complexity and feeling we humans lay exclusive claim to.” – Nan Sea Love. The discussion of the persona of animals and humans is an ongoing topic. Today, scientists with diverse worldviews influence both the young and old minds of individuals with their theories and philosophies based on observations and statistics. Society, as a whole, struggles with the connotation of animals portraying human traits and vice versa.

Two dogs were picked, and according to Tillberg, et al. (2007), the subject of the study must be at least seven weeks old to be in this test. The subjects of study are a female Siberian husky and a female Chihuahua. The Siberian husky is 10 months old and her name is Wendy. The Chihuahua is two and half years old and her name is Chichi. Both dogs are healthy and active. The dog belongs to close friends of mine, so the dogs are familiar with me being around. The design of the experiment was based on prior experiences with the dog such as interactions, walked the dog, and took the dogs to the park to play. The dogs were tested on a personality test on the website, volhard.com. Jack and Wendy Volhard (2007) created the test the Canine Personality Profile.

The discovery of inheritability of social behavior traits among non-human primates has important implications for people as it reinforces other research that suggests that such characteristics as sociability and impulsive

Aside from the common differences that can be seen from a distance without actually communicating or interacting with someone, such as the color of their skin, there are many other attributes that sets people apart. There are distinct differences in the way people think, feel, and behave; commonly referred to as personality. Various factors determine the persona of individuals. Some of these factors include the neural systems and distinctive genes. This paper looks at how genetic factors of people and their neural systems contribute to the personality of humans.

While psychology theorists vary greatly on their theories of personality, they all concur that numerous elements go into the creation and development of personality. The elements used in the creation and development of personality are: nature versus nature, the unconscious, view of self, development, motivation and maturation. Each of these elements contributes to the understanding of personality theory. To better understand the connection of these elements and the formation of personality theory researchers have conducted cases studies, surveys, and laboratory observations in order to observe the relationship between these elements and personality. Based upon the research that has been conducted correlations and casualty can be formed

Another model of personality, like the trait approach, is the biological model. This is by far the most scientific of all of the different models and is also the most prosperous, meaning that it regularly releases new discoveries. The biological model largely focuses on the functions of the brain and how that affects personality. Typically, this requires observation by brain mapping for the most accurate results, but since this is not available, the results will be inferred from subject A’s known personality.

Within the field of personality psychology there are six main domains of knowledge; the dispositional domain, the intrapsychic domain, the biological domain, the cognitive-experiential domain, the social and cultural domain, and the adjustment domain. While no domain is more important or influential over any other domain, the biological domain presents many theories that help explain the questions that arise within personality psychology, specifically the biological domain deals with the traits or characteristics that can be found within the person. Within the biological domain there are three main approaches; genetics and personality, physiological approaches to personality, and evolutionary perspectives on personality. Evolutionary psychologists

Other core personality variables that are present at birth and innate to human beings. To better understand the biological and genetic factors that affect personality one must consider how prominent researchers define personality. According to Joshua Wilt and William Revelle (2015), personality is “the coherent pattern of affect, cognition, and desires (goals) as they lead to behavior” (p. 479). Correspondingly, the most prevalent personality framework is the “Big Five,” or the five-factor model of personality developed by McCrae and Costa who specifically assume that traits are biologically based, inherent tendencies that persistently influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors throughout life (Broderick, & Blewitt, 2015). The five traits are as follows: (1) Extraversion which has the characteristics of being outgoing, enthusiastic, active, talkative, and assertive. (2) Agreeableness which has the characteristics of being warm, forgiving, sympathetic, kind, affectionate, generous, and compliant. (3) Conscientiousness which has the characteristics of being organized, reliable, careful, responsible, self-controlled, and efficient. (4) Neuroticism which has the characteristics of being tense, sensitive, moody, anxious, self-pitying, and self-conscious. (5) Openness to Experience which has the characteristics of being insightful, imaginative, artistic, curious, having wide-ranging interests, and a positive orientation to learning.

Two perspectives on the human personality will be explained in the following two sections. The first perspective is the biological perspective of personality. This perspective focuses largely on the internal genetic makeup of an individual and the effects this has on his or her personality. The biological perspective is strongly based on other scientific fields in laboratory or clinical conditions such as biology and biochemistry. The biological perspective involves intricate and often time-consuming scientific experiments to test for personality traits and correlations. Evolution is sometimes also mentioned within the biological perspective in sociobiology. The structure and function of the brain (neurobiology) is also central to the biological theory of personality.

The Five Factor Model by Costa and McCrae shows a clear connection to altruism. The category Agreeableness focuses on kindness, generosity, helpfulness, and an individual’s ability to cooperate with others a person is; which by definition is altruism. The Costa and McCrae Five Factor Model consisting of five categories, Openness, Contentiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, and is one of the most widely known and used personality measurement tools used by psychologists worldwide. From this model we are able to measure the five major aspects of someone’s personality. Someone who is high in agreeableness will be compassionate, considerate, and sympathetic and those low in agreeableness typically possess traits such that make them seem unsympathetic and aloof. Being extremely high in agreeableness however, is not necessarily superior. Being kind and generous to everyone will sometimes mean

Animal personality has recently drawn attention of many scientists. Although, there are many definitions of animal personality, but the most common used individual behavioural differences that are maintained over time and across the context (Réale and Dingemanse, 2012; Carter et al., 2013). The important in animal personality is to know why individuals from the same species differ and how these individual differences are maintained (Bergmüller and Taborsky, 2010; Réale et al., 2010; Sih et al., 2012; Wolf and Weissing, 2012). Therefore, good approach is to understand the phenotypic traits to be assessed. Some studies have boldness, exploration tendency, aggressiveness, activity, and sociability to a range of species including fish (Mather and

This essay will give a description of Personality before critically analysing the biological basis of personality approach. The biological basis approach tries to account for the mechanisms between genes and personality by looking at various different brain structures whilst the biochemical approach looks at the impact of hormones and neurotransmitters. The majority of our understanding of personality from a biological perspective focuses on the three main behavioural systems; the reward system, the motivation system and the punishment system. Within this essay I will be discussing the three main theories that have come from these ideas, Eyenck’s three-factor model, Gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) and Cloningers model of personality.