A food for all seasons: Stability of food preferences in gorillas across testing methods and seasons
Decisions about which foods to use during training and enrichment for captive animals may be based on invalid assumptions about individuals’ preferences. It is important to assess the stability of food preferences given that one-time preferences are often used to inform which items are offered over a longer period of time. Presenting preference assessments using […]
Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) as living fossils of hominoid personality and subjective well-being
Personality dimensions capturing individual differences in behavior, cognition, and affect have been described in several species, including humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans. However, comparisons between species are limited by the use of different questionnaires. We asked raters to assess free-ranging rhesus macaques at two time points on personality and subjective well-being questionnaires used earlier to rate […]
Stability of social hierarchy in growing female pigs and pregnant sows
Conflicting results between dominance tests and repetitions of these tests over time in pigs may result from a lack of stability of their social hierarchy. The objectives of this study were to compare five methods to measure social hierarchy and to examine the stability of test results over time in groups of growing females and […]
Tenure in current captive setting and age predict personality changes in adult pigtailed macaques
Personality change in nonhuman primates is a topic that warrants more research attention. Many studies focus on intraindividual repeatability, but few note population-wide trends in personality change. In part, this results from the large sample size that is required to detect such trends. In the present study, we measured personality in a large sample (N […]