Peter Buirski

Sex differences, dominance, and personality in the chimpanzee

This study demonstrates a useful methodology for judging the personality of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthi). Observers rated the chimpanzees on a forced-choice rating scale which yielded measures on eight emotion dimensions. The rating scale, Emotions Profile Index, is derived from a theory of personality which stresses the adaptive significance of emotions at all evolutionary levels. This method has theoretical generality, having been successfully applied previously to humans, baboons and dolphins. Observers were able to rate chimpanzees with reasonable reliability. Sex differences in personality were evident in this chimpanzee sample. In addition, dominance rank was found to correlate with certain emotion dimensions.

A field study of emotions, dominance, and social behavior in a group of baboons (Papio anubis)

This study involved the testing of a new rating instrument designed to measure emotional behavior, and the examination of the correlations between dominance and certain classes of emotional behavior. The sample population was a troop of 7 olive baboons. The rating scale was found to be very effective. Wide individual differences in scores on the 8 dimensions of the scale were detected. Also, there was high interjudge reliability indicating that independent observers can agree on the temperamental characteristics of primates. “Mean time being groomed,” a duration/frequency ratio, more fully reflects the dominance relationship between two animals than any other single index. “Mean time being groomed” was found to correlate significantly with the dimensionsprotection, deprivation, rejection anddestruction. More dominant animals showed less sociability and more aggression than the submissive animals, who showed a great deal of both sociability and fearfulness.

Measurement of Deviant Behavior in a Gombe Chimpanzee: Relation to Later Behavior

In 1973, personality ratings using a test called the Emotions Profile Index (EPI) were made on a number of Gombe chimpanzees, including a deviant female namedPassion. Passions ratings were compared to the profiles of the other adult females from the same community.Passions ratings were also analyzed in terms of her subsequent infanticidal and cannibalistic behavior, observed from 1975 to 1977. The EPI scales were found to be useful in detecting social deviance. The test appears to be a good descriptive and predictive measuring instrument. Suggestions are made for utilizing the EPI rating scales in the assessment of the psychological well-being of captive and/or research animals.

Prejudice as a Function of Self-organization

This article reviewed the traditional psychoanalytic theories of the development and maintenance of prejudiced attitudes and affects. To this body of understanding, the authors offered a self psychological perspective. They described the treatment of Sandy, a woman who presented with extreme express

Social Media as Organizing But Not Transforming Self-Experience

Much sociological and psychological research has been done on excessive or “addictive” Internet use, with increased attention paid to the use of social media sites in particular. This article attempts to understand the addictive engagement with social media from the perspective of self psychology and intersubjective systems theory. This article proposes that social media shares various characteristics with selfobject experience, thus making its use attractive to those longing for missing selfobject experience or the correction of painful self-experience from the past. We will discuss how selfobject experience transforms; outline the way in which social media mimics selfobject experience; examine how such characteristics are alluring to those craving selfobject experience; and explore how the unique interaction between the user and the site affects whether the site contributes to transforming, growth-promoting selfobject experience or becomes a form of self-experience that organizes but fails to transform.

Literature as a Projection of the Author's Personality

Summary N Achievement, n Affiliation, and Mean Sentence Length were studied in the TAT protocols and the short stories of 10 published authors. Only low correlations and small differences among authors were found. Mean Sentence Length did not discriminate among authors. It did show differences between TAT and short stories, suggesting that the planned control which goes into story writing is an important aspect of how an author writes. Results are discussed in terms of the Zeitgeist, the collective personality of society, as well as the individual personality of the author.