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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior pp 5176–5184Cite as

Personality in Animals

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Synonyms

Behavioral syndromes; Individual differences; Temperament

Introduction

What is personality? If asked this question, most people would have an intuitive sense of what the word “personality” means. When describing their pets, or animals at zoos, it would not be uncommon for someone to use terms such as curious, excited, or shy. However, pinning down a clear definition of personality is more challenging. In humans, personality refers to individual differences in patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving (Gosling 2001). These patterns are thought to be stable across time, meaning that a person who tends to be excitable at one time point will also tend to be excitable a month later, although there are known changes that occur across a person’s life span (Roberts et al. 2006). Individual patterns are also thought to be stable across contexts. For example, someone who is curious about new people will also be curious about new aspects of their environment. It is unfortunately not...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA

    Amber J. de Vere

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  1. Amber J. de Vere
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Correspondence to Amber J. de Vere .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL, USA

    Lauren Highfill

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de Vere, A.J. (2022). Personality in Animals. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_984

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