Timesonline (UK) 2/22/05: Science bows to dog mind

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1494744,00.html

 

February 22, 2005

Science bows to dog mind

 

DOGS share four of the five main personality traits that

psychologists use to understand human behaviour, says a British

researcher based in the US.

 

The findings by Samuel Gosling of the University of Texas promise to

settle a question that may strike pet owners as odd, but which is

controversial among scientists: whether animals can be said to have a

meaningful personality at all.

 

Dr Gosling said: " The evidence that dogs have personality is as

strong as the evidence that humans have.

 

" There has been surprising resistance to the idea among scientists.

There's a strong view that animal personality is preposterous

anthropomorphism: when I suggested applying measures of human

personality to animals, I had people yelling that I was bringing the

field into disrepute. "

 

Human personality is measured according to five variables:

extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and

openness to new experience. Dr Gosling found that only

conscientiousness - which measures trustworthiness, selfishness and

dependability - was absent in dogs.

 

To investigate whether dog personalities were predictable, Dr Gosling

interviewed owners about their pets' temperaments, then tested

whether the dogs would behave as predicted in particular

circumstances.

 

Dogs' " emotional stability " , for example, the equivalent of human

neuroticism, was tested by asking an owner to leave her dog and walk

away with another dog on the lead.

 

" If I'd known how much this would affect certain dogs, I might have

found another way, " Dr Gosling said. " Some animals absolutely hated

this, and this correlated well with the predictions. "

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