title: Personality and subjective well-being in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus and Pongo abelii).
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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory 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
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Lori
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Perkins
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015588:Observer Variation; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D010551:Personality; D011148:Pongo pygmaeus / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results