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SUMMARY:Behavioural measurements versus assessments of personality - Dr Ja
 na Uher - Senior Research Fellow\, Marie Curie Fellow\, London School of E
 conomics and Political Science
DTSTART:20170508T120000Z
DTEND:20170508T130000Z
UID:TALK72391@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lorraine Coulson
DESCRIPTION:Many animal species exhibit pronounced individual-specific beh
 aviours commonly construed as personality or temperament. Their ecological
  and evolutionary relevance is meanwhile unquestioned\, but the conceptual
  and methodological foundations are often not well known. I elaborate thre
 e defining criteria to disentangle individual-specific from random individ
 ual variation and introduce two central perspectives taken on individuals.
  Variable-centred analyses explore between-individual differences in popul
 ations\; individual-centred analyses explore the single individual and its
  unique configurations of behavioural patterns. Both perspectives are need
 ed to understand why the cross-situational consistency of individual behav
 iour is often only moderate and the ways in which individuals’ responses
  to different situations can be individual-specific. I demonstrate how per
 sonality differences can be measured reliably in controlled experiments an
 d group observations\, illustrated with examples from my studies involving
  great apes\, capuchins and macaques. Finally\, I critically analyse perso
 nality ratings by human observers\, which have gained increasing popularit
 y among some animal researchers. I demonstrate empirically that their appa
 rent advantages over ethological measurements\, such as higher correlation
 s among behaviours or across situations\, may derive from biased perceptio
 ns and attributions of human observers that can\, but need not accurately 
 reflect the behavioural reality of animal individuals.
LOCATION:Kenneth Craik Room\, Craik Marshall Building\, Downing Site\, Cam
 bridge
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