Dolphins found to share some personality traits with humans

Posted by Anita Froneman on 24 February 2021

Bottlenose dolphins share certain personality traits with humans, especially curiosity and sociability, a new study found.

Personality structure in bottlenose dolphins, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, studied 134 male and female bottlenose dolphins from eight areas across the world including Mexico, France, the US, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Sweden.

Lead author of the study, Dr Blake Morton, said that although the intelligence of dolphins has long been discovered, this is the first time their personalities have been studied and compared to that of humans in this way.

‘Dolphins were a great animal for this kind of study because, like primates, dolphins are intelligent and social. We reasoned that if factors such as intelligence and gregariousness contribute to personality, then dolphins should have similar personality traits to primates,’ Morton said.

The study found the dolphins’ personalities could be classified in four domains regardless of their immediate environment. Three of those (Openness, Sociability, and Disagreeableness) resembled personality domains found in nonhuman primates and other species. The fourth, Directedness, (a blend of high Conscientiousness and low Neuroticism) was unique to dolphins.

However, he warned against making the simplistic assumption that humans and dolphins have exactly the same possible personalities. ‘I don’t want people to misinterpret that and say humans and dolphins have the same personality traits – they don’t. It’s just that some of them are similar.’

Picture: Pixabay






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