Chimp behaviors and personalities


I want to refer you to a very interesting article published in The Economist under the title: "Planet of the Apes".

This article focuses on the results of a report from the American Journal of Primatology by Dr. Freeman and her team who have been studying chimpanzee behavior for a long time.  It would seem that chimpanzee personas have six dimensions (extroversion, agreeableness, openness, reactivity, dominance and methodicalness) as opposed to five for humans (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness).  Reactivity could be compared to neuroticism in humans but is different enough not be identified as such; methodicalness measures how the apes solve problems (using a twig to retrieve ants for instance) and could be more or less equated to conscientiousness in humans, although different.  However, per Dr. Freeman and her team, there is no human equivalent to chimp dominance.

The study is important for zoo keepers since it allows them to assess whether or not two chimps could get along in the same enclosure.  

Chimpanzee dominance - BBC video

Chimpanzee empathy - De Waal

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