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Personality in Nonhuman Animals pp 3–16Cite as

A History of Animal Personality Research

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Abstract

Though the study of animal personality has experienced explosive growth in the last 20 years, its history can be traced to the early days of comparative psychology. Early descriptions of nonhuman animals as sociable or fearful and the like have been progressively replaced across the years with systematic coding of behavioral patterns across multiple dimensions of temperament, in a fashion (and with results) similar to the way the topic is studied in humans. This chapter will explore the researchers, laboratories, and methodologies of animal personality research as it evolved from a methodologically impermeable curiosity to an increasingly important determinant of individual and species variability in behavior.

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Acknowledgements

Preparation of this chapter was supported by Grant HD-060563 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and by Georgia State University. For more information, contact the authors at wwhitham1@student.gsu.edu or dwashburn@gsu.edu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Will Whitham & David A. Washburn

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  1. Will Whitham
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  2. David A. Washburn
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Correspondence to Will Whitham .

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Editors and Affiliations

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

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Alexander Weiss

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA

    Stan A. Kuczaj

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Whitham, W., Washburn, D.A. (2017). A History of Animal Personality Research. In: Vonk, J., Weiss, A., Kuczaj, S. (eds) Personality in Nonhuman Animals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59300-5_1

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