ORE Open Research Exeter
TITLE
Animal personality: What are behavioural ecologists measuring?
AUTHORS
Carter, Alecia J.; Feeney, WE; Marshall, Harry H.; et al.
JOURNAL
Biological Reviews
DEPOSITED IN ORE
04 January 2016
This version available at
http://hdl.handle.net/10871/19094
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publication
For Review Only
Animal personality: wh
at are behavioural ecologists
measuring?
Journal:
Biological Reviews
Manuscript ID:
BRV-03-2012-0048.R2
Manuscript Type:
Original Article
Date Submitted by the Author:
n/a
Complete List of Authors:
Carter, Alecia; Australian National University, Fenner School of
Environment and Society
Feeney, William; Australian National University,
Marshall, Harry; Institute of Zoology,
Cowlishaw, Guy; Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London
Heinsohn, Robert; Australian National University, Fenner School of
Environment and Society
Keywords:
behavioural syndromes, boldness, exploration, methodology, animal
personality, risk-taking
Biological Reviews
For Review Only
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Animal personality: what are behavioural ecologists
1
measuring?
2
3
Alecia J. Carter
1,2,3
, William E. Feeney
4
, Harry H. Marshall
2,5
, Guy Cowlishaw
2
& Robert
4
Heinsohn
1
5
6
7
1
The Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Acton, 8
Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia 9
2
The Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, NW1 4RY, London, U.K. 10
3
Current address: Large Animal Research Group, Department of Zoology, The University of 11
Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, CB2 3EJ E 12
4
Evolution, Ecology and Genetics, The Research School of Biology, The Australian National 13
University, Acton, Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia 14
5
Division of Ecology and Evolution, Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood 15
Park, Ascot, Berkshire, SL5 7PY, U.K. 16
Corresponding author: Alecia J. Carter: Large Animal Research Group, Department of Zoology, The 17
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, CB2 3EJ E: ac854@cam.ac.uk T: +44 1223 769277 18
19
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Animal personality: what are behavioural ecologists measuring?
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The discovery that an individual may be constrained, and even behave sub-optimally, because of its 21
personality type has fundamental implications for understanding individual- to group-level processes. 22
Despite recent interest in the study of animal personalities within behavioural ecology, the field is 23
fraught with conceptual and methodological difficulties inherent in any young discipline. We review 24
the current agreement of definitions and methods used in personality studies across taxa and systems, 25
and find that current methods risk misclassifying traits. Fortunately, these problems have been faced 26
before by other similar fields during their infancy, affording important opportunities to learn from past 27
mistakes. We review the tools that were developed to overcome similar methodological problems in 28
psychology. These tools emphasise the importance of attempting to measure animal personality traits 29
using multiple tests and the care that needs to be taken when interpreting correlations between 30
personality traits or their tests. Accordingly, we suggest an integrative theoretical framework that 31
incorporates these tools to facilitate a robust and unified approach in the study of animal personality. 32
33
Keywords: animal personality, behavioural syndromes, boldness, exploration, methods, risk-taking 34
35
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CONTENTS 36
I. Introduction 37
II. Problems measuring personality traits 38
1. Many tests for one trait 39
2. One test for many traits 40
III. Lessons from other fields 41
1. An important caveat 42
2. Test validity 43
a. Reliability 44
b. Convergent and discriminant validities 45
c. Other validities 46
3. Jingle-jangle fallacies and trait definitions 47
4. Interpreting tests 48
5. Measurement considerations 49
IV. How to measure personality traits 50
V. Conclusions 51
52
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