What is an animal personality?
What is an animal personality?
复制标题
DOI：
10.1007/s10539-020-09776-w
复制
发表时间：
2021-02-01
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Mueller, Caroline
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kaiser, Marie I.;Mueller, Caroline
据说许多动物物种的个体都有个性。研究表明，有些个体比同一物种的其他个体更大胆，或者更善于交际或更具攻击性。在本文中，我们分析了动物具有个性的含义。我们阐明什么是动物人格，即它的本体论，以及不同的人格概念如何相互关联，并研究如何在生物学实践中识别人格特征。我们的分析表明，生物学家经常研究特定的人格特征，例如大胆、社交性或攻击性，而不是一般的人格。我们认为，人格特质最好被理解为性格，并且它们在操作上是根据某些行为组来定义的，这些行为是在特定的实验设置中进行研究的。此外，我们开发了一个综合的哲学解释，它指定并形式化了识别人格特征的三个标准，这些标准用于生物学实践。对于单个动物来说，要具有人格特征，它首先必须表现得与其他动物不同（个体差异）。其次，这些行为差异必须在一定时间内保持稳定（时间稳定性），第三，它们在不同的上下文中必须保持一致（上下文一致性）。
Individuals of many animal species are said to have a personality. It has been shown that some individuals are bolder than other individuals of the same species, or more sociable or more aggressive. In this paper, we analyse what it means to say that an animal has a personality. We clarify what an animal personality is, that is, its ontology, and how different personality concepts relate to each other, and we examine how personality traits are identified in biological practice. Our analysis shows that biologists often study specific personality traits, such as boldness, sociability or aggressiveness, rather than personalities in general. We claim that personality traits are best understood as dispositions and that they are operationally defined in terms of certain sets of behaviours, which are studied in specific experimental set-ups. Furthermore, we develop an integrative philosophical account that specifies and formalises three criteria for identifying personality traits, which are used in biological practice. For an individual animal to have a personality trait it must, first, behave differently than others (Individual Differences). Second, these behavioural differences must be stable over a certain time (Temporal Stability), and third, they must be consistent in different contexts (Contextual Consistency).