Personality

More exploratory house mice judge an ambiguous situation more negatively

Exploration tendency, one of the most investigated animal personality traits, may be driven by either positive (when seeking interesting information) or negative (to reduce the uncertainty of the environment) affective/emotional profiles. To disentangle the valence of the affective state associated...

Year Published: 2021Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, PersonalityAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Verjat, A., Devienne, P., Rödel, H. G. et al. 2021. More exploratory house mice judge an ambiguous situation more negatively. Animal Cognition 24(1), 53–64.

Knowledge of lateralized brain function can contribute to animal welfare

The specialized functions of each hemisphere of the vertebrate brain are summarized together with the current evidence of lateralized behavior in farm and companion animals, as shown by the eye or ear used to attend and respond to stimuli. Forelimb...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Personality, Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Rogers, L. J. 2023. Knowledge of lateralized brain function can contribute to animal welfare. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.

Thinking chickens: A review of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the domestic chicken

Domestic chickens are members of an order, Aves, which has been the focus of a revolution in our understanding of neuroanatomical, cognitive, and social complexity. At least some birds are now known to be on par with many mammals in...

Year Published: 2017Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, PersonalityAnimal Type: Bird, Chicken

Citation: Marino, L. 2017. Thinking chickens: A review of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the domestic chicken. Animal Cognition 20(2), 127–147.

The psychology of cows

Domestic cows (Bos taurus) are consumed worldwide as beef and veal, kept as dairy product producers, employed as draft animals in labor, and are used for a long list of other products, including leather and manure. But despite global reliance...

Year Published: 2017Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, PersonalityAnimal Type: Cattle

Citation: Marino, L., Allen, K. 2017. The psychology of cows. Animal Behavior and Cognition 4(4), 474–498

The psychology of cows? A case of over-interpretation and personification

Reviews of existing literature on topics that have been neglected, such as the subject of the cognitive and affective abilities of cows, are productive and necessary exercises in science (Elwen, Findlay, Kiszka, & Weir, 2011; Mulrow, 1994). These syntheses organize...

Year Published: 2017Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, PersonalityAnimal Type: Cattle

Citation: Hill, H. M. 2017. The psychology of cows? A case of over-interpretation and personification. Animal Behavior and Cognition 4(4), 506–511.

Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute

Welfare is an individual attribute. In general, providing captive nonhuman animals with conditions conducive to good welfare is an idea more easily applied when dealing with few individuals. However, this becomes much harder—if not impossible—under farming conditions that may imply...

Year Published: 2022Topics: PersonalityAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Torgerson-White, L., Sánchez-Suárez, W. 2022. Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute. Animals 12(19), 2592.

Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations

Chronic stress is a major source of welfare problems in many captive populations, including fishes. While we have long known that chronic stress effects arise from maladaptive expression of acute stress response pathways, predicting where and when problems will arise...

Year Published: 2022Topics: PersonalityAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Prentice, P. M., Houslay, T. M., Wilson, A. J. 2022. Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1046205.

Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or in research, the different approaches...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Animal Training, Environmental Enrichment, Housing, Husbandry & Management, Personality, Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Baboon, Capuchin, Chimpanzee, Lemur, Macaque, Marmoset, Nonhuman Primate, Other Nonhuman Primate, Owl Monkey, Squirrel Monkey, Vervet (African Green Monkey)

Citation: Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

A psychological aversive condition does not change individual zebrafish preference for background color or artificial plant enrichments

Information on fish preference for environmental conditions can be a useful tool to offer them what they want, an important requirement for welfare purposes. Giving that such an approach deals with psychological states of the fish, we investigated whether psychological...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Environmental Enrichment, Housing, PersonalityAnimal Type: Fish, Zebrafish

Citation: Marques Maia, C., Volpato, G. L., Braithwaite, V. A. 2022. A psychological aversive condition does not change individual zebrafish preference for background color or artificial plant enrichments. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 25(4), 427-438.

A possible basis for personality in dogs: Individual differences in affective predispositions

Previously, dog personality traits that seem to correspond have been identified by the Dog Mentality Assessment (DMA) and the Behaviour and Personality Assessment in Dogs (BPH): Playfulness, Sociability, Curiosity/fearlessness (DMA) vs. Non-social fearfulness (BPH), Aggressiveness, and Boldness. The first aim...

Year Published: 2022Topics: PersonalityAnimal Type: Dog

Citation: Svartberg, K. 2022. A possible basis for personality in dogs: Individual differences in affective predispositions. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 255, 105740.