Divergent personality structures of brown (Sapajus apella) and white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus)

Robinson, L.M., Morton, F.B., Gartner, M.C., Widness, J., Paukner, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-3421-1864, Essler, J.L., Brosnan, S.F. and Weiss, A., 2016. Divergent personality structures of brown (Sapajus apella) and white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130 (4), pp. 305-312. ISSN 0735-7036

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Abstract

One way to gain insights into personality evolution is by comparing the personality structures of related species. We compared the personality structure of 240 wild white-faced capuchin monkeys to the personality structure of 100 captive brown capuchin monkeys. An ancillary goal was to test the degree to which different personality questionnaires yielded similar personality dimensions. Both species were rated on a common set of 26 antonym pairs. The brown capuchin monkeys were also rated on the 54-item Hominoid Personality Questionnaire. Our cross-species comparisons revealed three personality dimensions---Assertiveness, Openness, and Neuroticism---shared by brown and white-faced capuchins, suggesting that these dimensions were present in the common ancestor of these species. Our comparison of the dimensions derived from the antonym pairs and the Hominoid Personality Questionnaire revealed that three common dimensions were identified by both questionnaires. In addition, the dimension Attentiveness was only identified using the Hominoid Personality Questionnaire. These results indicate that major features of capuchin personality are conserved and that the structure of some traits, such as those related to focus, persistence, and attention, diverged. Further work is needed to identify the evolutionary bases that led to the conservation of some dimensions but not others.

Item Type: Journal article
Publication Title: Journal of Comparative Psychology
Creators: Robinson, L.M., Morton, F.B., Gartner, M.C., Widness, J., Paukner, A., Essler, J.L., Brosnan, S.F. and Weiss, A.
Publisher: American Psychological Association
Date: 1 November 2016
Volume: 130
Number: 4
ISSN: 0735-7036
Identifiers:
NumberType
10.1037/com0000037DOI
2016-39633-001Other
Divisions: Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by: Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added: 31 Jan 2019 16:43
Last Modified: 29 Mar 2019 09:07
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/35741

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