To better understand human and chimpanzee personality evolution, we obtained trait ratings of personality for 154 captive bonobos (~80% of the U.S. and European population). We found factors that we labeled Assertiveness, Conscientiousness, Openness, Agreeableness, Attentiveness, and Extraversion. The interrater reliabilities and test-retest reliabilities for these factors were comparable to those found in humans and other species. Using orthogonal targeted Procrustes rotations, we compared the bonobo dimensions with those of three samples of captive chimpanzees. Overall congruence coefficients indicated a fair degree of similarity; at the factor level, there was good evidence for Assertiveness, Conscientiousness, Openness, and Agreeableness in the chimpanzee samples; evidence for Attentiveness and Extraversion was poor. These findings suggest that, as expected given their close phylogenetic relationship, bonobo personality structure resembles chimpanzee personality structure in some respects. However, divergent evolution, perhaps as a result of socioecological differences between bonobos and chimpanzees, also appears to have shaped personality structure in these species.
AureliF.SchaffnerC. M.BoeschC.BearderS. K.CallJ.ChapmanC. A.. . . van SchaickC. P. (2008). Fission-fusion dynamics: New research frameworks. Current Anthropology, 49, 627–654. doi:10.1086/586708
2.
BehnckeI. (2015). Play in the Peter Pan ape. Current Biology, 25, R24–R27. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.11.020
3.
BellA. M.HankisonS. J.LaskowskiK. L. (2009). The repeatability of behaviour: A meta-analysis. Animal Behaviour, 77, 771–783. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.12.022
4.
CostaP. T.Jr.McCraeR. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
5.
de WaalF. B. M. (1995). Bonobo sex and society. Scientific American, 272, 58–64.
6.
DuttonD. M. (2008). Subjective assessment of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) personality: Reliability and stability of trait ratings. Primates, 49, 253–259. doi:10.1007/s10329-008-0094-1
7.
EckardtW.SteklisH. D.SteklisN. G.FletcherA. W.StoinskiT. S.WeissA. (2015). Personality dimensions and their behavioral correlates in wild Virunga mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 129, 26–41. doi:10.1037/a0038370
8.
FreemanH. D.BrosnanS. F.HopperL. M.LambethS. P.SchapiroS. J.GoslingS. D. (2013). Developing a comprehensive and comparative questionnaire for measuring personality in chimpanzees using a simultaneous top-down/bottom-up design. American Journal of Primatology, 75, 1042–1053. doi:10.1002/ajp.22168
9.
FuruichiT. (2011). Female contributions to the peaceful nature of bonobo society. Evolutionary Anthropology, 20, 131–142. doi:10.1002/evan.20308
10.
GlazkoG. V.NeiM. (2003). Estimation of divergence times for major lineages of primate species. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 20, 424–434. doi:10.1093/molbev/msg050
11.
GoldK. C.MapleT. L. (1994). Personality assessment in the gorilla and its utility as a management tool. Zoo Biology, 13, 509–522.
12.
GoldbergL. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216–1229. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1216
13.
GoslingS. D. (2001). From mice to men: What can we learn about personality from animal research?Psychological Bulletin, 127, 45–86. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.127.1.45
14.
GoslingS. D.GraybealA. (2007). Tree thinking: A new paradigm for integrating comparative data in psychology. The Journal of General Psychology, 134, 259–277. doi:10.3200/GENP.134.2.259-278
15.
HareB.WobberV.WranghamR. (2012). The self-domestication hypothesis: Evolution of bonobo psychology is due to selection against aggression. Animal Behaviour, 83, 573–585. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.12.007
KingJ. E.FigueredoA. J. (1997). The five-factor model plus dominance in chimpanzee personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 257–271. doi:10.1006/jrpe.1997.2179
18.
KingJ. E.WeissA.FarmerK. H. (2005). A chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) analogue of cross-national generalization of personality structure: Zoological parks and an African sanctuary. Journal of Personality, 73, 389–410. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00313.x
19.
KingJ. E.WeissA.SiscoM. M. (2008). Aping humans: Age and sex effects in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and human (Homo sapiens) personality. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 122, 418–427. doi:10.1037/a0013125
20.
KonecˇnáM.LhotaS.WeissA.UrbánekT.AdamováT.PluhácˇekJ. (2008). Personality in free-ranging Hanuman langur (Semnopithecus entellus) males: Subjective ratings and recorded behavior. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 122, 379–389. doi:10.1037/a0012625
21.
KonecˇnáM.WeissA.LhotaS.WallnerB. (2012). Personality in Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus): Temporal stability and social rank. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 581–590. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2012.06.004
22.
Lorenzo-SevaU.ten BergeJ. M. F. (2006). Tucker’s congruence coefficient as a meaningful index of factor similarity. Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2, 57–64.
23.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T.Jr. (1999). A five-factor theory of personality. In PervinL.JohnO. P. (Eds.), Handbook of personality (2nd ed., pp. 159–181). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
24.
McCraeR. R.ZondermanA. B.BondM. H.CostaP. T.Jr.PaunonenS. V. (1996). Evaluating replicability of factors in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory: Confirmatory factor analysis versus Procrustes rotation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 552–566. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.552
25.
MortonF. B.LeeP. C.Buchanan-SmithH. M.BrosnanS. F.ThierryB.PauknerA.. . . WeissA. (2013). Personality structure in brown capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella): Comparisons with chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), orangutans (Pongo spp.), and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 127, 282–298. doi:10.1037/a0031723
26.
NakagawaS.SchielzethH. (2010). Repeatability for Gaussian and non-Gaussian data: A practical guide for biologists. Biological Reviews, 85, 935–956.
27.
PalagiE. (2006). Social play in bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Implications for natural social systems and interindividual relationships. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 129, 418–426. doi:10.1002/ajpa.20289
28.
R Development Core Team. (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
29.
ReinartzG. E. (1997). Patterns of genetic variation in the bonobo (Pan paniscus) (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
RobbinsM. M. (2011). Gorillas: Diversity in ecology and behavior. In CampbellC. J.FuentesA.MacKinnonK. C.BearderS. K.StumpfR. M. (Eds.), Primates in perspective (2nd ed., pp. 326–339). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
32.
SchaeferS. A.SteklisH. D. (2014). Personality and subjective well-being in captive male western lowland gorillas living in bachelor groups. American Journal of Primatology, 76, 879–889. doi:10.1002/ajp.22275
33.
ShroutP. E.FleissJ. L. (1979). Intraclass correlations: Uses in assessing rater reliability. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 420–428. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.86.2.420
34.
StevensJ. M. G.de GrootE.StaesN. (2015). Relationship quality in captive bonobo groups. Behaviour, 152, 259–283. doi:10.1163/1568539X-00003259
35.
StevensJ. M. G.VervaeckeH.de VriesH.van ElsackerL. (2007). Sex differences in the steepness of dominance hierarchies in captive bonobo groups. International Journal of Primatology, 28, 1417–1430. doi:10.1007/s10764-007-9186-9
36.
VervaeckeH.De VriesH.Van ElsackerL. (2000). The pivotal role of rank in grooming and support behavior in a captive group of bonobos (Pan paniscus). Behaviour, 137, 1463–1485. doi:10.1163/156853900502673
37.
WeissA.AdamsM. J.WiddigA.GeraldM. S. (2011). Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) as living fossils of hominoid personality and subjective well-being. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 125, 72–83. doi:10.1037/a0021187
38.
WeissA.Inoue-MurayamaM.HongK.-W.InoueE.UdonoS.OchiaiT.. . . KingJ. E. (2009). Assessing chimpanzee personality and subjective well-being in Japan. American Journal of Primatology, 71, 283–292. doi:10.1002/ajp.20649
39.
WeissA.KingJ. E.HopkinsW. D. (2007). A cross-setting study of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) personality structure and development: Zoological parks and Yerkes National Primate Research Center. American Journal of Primatology, 69, 1264–1277. doi:10.1002/ajp.20428
40.
WeissA.KingJ. E.PerkinsL. (2006). Personality and subjective well-being in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo abelii). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 501–511. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.3.501
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
