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Personality and subjective well-being in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo abelii)
Alexander Weiss1, James E King, Lori Perkins
1Laboratory of Personality and Cognition, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Baltimore, MD, USA. alex.weiss@ed.ac.uk
Abstract:
Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo abelii) are semisolitary apes and, among the great apes, the most distantly related to humans. Raters assessed 152 orangutans on 48 personality descriptors; 140 of these orangutans were also rated on a subjective well-being questionnaire. Principal-components analysis yielded 5 reliable personality factors: Extraversion, Dominance, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Intellect. The authors found no factor analogous to human Conscientiousness. Among the orangutans rated on all 48 personality descriptors and the subjective well-being questionnaire, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and low Neuroticism were related to subjective well-being. These findings suggest that analogues of human, chimpanzee, and orangutan personality domains existed in a common ape ancestor.
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