Majestic tigers: personality structure in the great Amur cat

Rosalind Arden; Abdel Abdellaoui; Qian Li; Yao Zheng; Dengfeng Wang; Yanjie Su

doi:https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220957

Majestic tigers: personality structure in the great Amur cat

Rosalind Arden, Abdel Abdellaoui, Qian Li, Yao Zheng, Dengfeng Wang, Yanjie Su

Adult Psychiatry (AMC)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We explore individual differences in tiger personality. We first asked - is there evidence of personality dimensions (analogous to the Big Five in human personality research) in the Amur tiger? We then asked, are any discoverable personality dimensions associated with measured outcomes, including group status, health and mating frequency? 152 of our participating tigers live in the world's largest semi-wild tiger sanctuary in North Eastern China. Our second sample of 96 tigers also lives in a sanctuary. Having two samples allowed us to assess the replicability of the personality dimensions or factors reported in our first sample. We found that two factors (explaining 21% and 17% of the variance among items) which we call, for descriptive ease, Majesty and Steadiness, provide the best fit to the data. Tigers that score higher on Majesty are healthier, eat more live prey, have higher group status (among other tigers as assessed by human raters) and mate more often. We provide some ethological context to put flesh on the quantitative bones of our findings concerning these magnificent and charismatic animals.

Original language	English
Article number	220957
Journal	Royal Society open science
Volume	10
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220957
Publication status	Published - 5 Apr 2023

Keywords

animal behaviour
animal personality
cats
conservation
great cats
tiger

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title = "Majestic tigers: personality structure in the great Amur cat",

abstract = "We explore individual differences in tiger personality. We first asked - is there evidence of personality dimensions (analogous to the Big Five in human personality research) in the Amur tiger? We then asked, are any discoverable personality dimensions associated with measured outcomes, including group status, health and mating frequency? 152 of our participating tigers live in the world's largest semi-wild tiger sanctuary in North Eastern China. Our second sample of 96 tigers also lives in a sanctuary. Having two samples allowed us to assess the replicability of the personality dimensions or factors reported in our first sample. We found that two factors (explaining 21% and 17% of the variance among items) which we call, for descriptive ease, Majesty and Steadiness, provide the best fit to the data. Tigers that score higher on Majesty are healthier, eat more live prey, have higher group status (among other tigers as assessed by human raters) and mate more often. We provide some ethological context to put flesh on the quantitative bones of our findings concerning these magnificent and charismatic animals.",

keywords = "animal behaviour, animal personality, cats, conservation, great cats, tiger",

author = "Rosalind Arden and Abdel Abdellaoui and Qian Li and Yao Zheng and Dengfeng Wang and Yanjie Su",

note = "Arden and Abdellaoui contributed equally to the study --------------------------------------------------------- Funding Information: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 32071075 and 31872782). We thank The de Laszlo Foundation for supporting the development of this manuscript. Funding Information: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 32071075 and 31872782). We thank The de Laszlo Foundation for supporting the development of this manuscript. Acknowledgements Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors.",

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AU - Su, Yanjie

N1 - Arden and Abdellaoui contributed equally to the study --------------------------------------------------------- Funding Information: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 32071075 and 31872782). We thank The de Laszlo Foundation for supporting the development of this manuscript. Funding Information: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 32071075 and 31872782). We thank The de Laszlo Foundation for supporting the development of this manuscript. Acknowledgements Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors.

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N2 - We explore individual differences in tiger personality. We first asked - is there evidence of personality dimensions (analogous to the Big Five in human personality research) in the Amur tiger? We then asked, are any discoverable personality dimensions associated with measured outcomes, including group status, health and mating frequency? 152 of our participating tigers live in the world's largest semi-wild tiger sanctuary in North Eastern China. Our second sample of 96 tigers also lives in a sanctuary. Having two samples allowed us to assess the replicability of the personality dimensions or factors reported in our first sample. We found that two factors (explaining 21% and 17% of the variance among items) which we call, for descriptive ease, Majesty and Steadiness, provide the best fit to the data. Tigers that score higher on Majesty are healthier, eat more live prey, have higher group status (among other tigers as assessed by human raters) and mate more often. We provide some ethological context to put flesh on the quantitative bones of our findings concerning these magnificent and charismatic animals.

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Majestic tigers: personality structure in the great Amur cat

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Keywords

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