How zoos and aquariums care for animals is changing. Early zoos and aquariums focused more on what people needed than what the animals needed. They designed habitats that suited visitors more than the animals. Then zoos and aquariums started considering the needs of species and their adaptations. Savanna-style habitats were created for giraffes and habitats with trees were provided for arboreal monkeys. Now many zoos and aquariums are thinking beyond the needs of a species and considering the unique personalities of individual animals.

Animal personality research has exploded in recent years, and we’ve learned about the different personality traits shown by penguins, monkeys, apes, sea lions, horses, and hyenas (to name a few). Now, in research about to be published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, researchers have reported the personality traits of a species that captures hearts around the globe — bottlenose dolphins.

Blake Morton and colleagues studied dolphin personality structure by considering 134 dolphins living in eight facilities around the world. The authors used a well-established strategy in animal personality research, namely, having staff complete questionnaires about individual dolphins they knew well. Staff read statements and indicated how characteristic, or uncharacteristic, that statement was about a given dolphin. The researchers checked for agreement between people to gain trust in the ratings (another common strategy), and used the survey responses to systematically extract the underlying personality structure of dolphins.

You may have heard of the “Big Five” personality traits identified for humans: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. For dolphins, the researchers found four personality traits: Openness, Sociability, Disagreeableness and Directedness. Although the labels are slightly different, the personality structure of dolphins turned out to be similar to other social species including monkeys, apes and humans. This suggests personalities may evolve in predictable ways.

However, the Directedness personality trait that the researchers discovered was unique to dolphins. Dolphins high on Directedness were characterized as focused, bold and consistent. The flip side is also true. Dolphins low on the Directedness trait were less focused, shyer, and inconsistent.

As people strive to understand how and why individual animals respond differently to the same type of care, personality research helps give some guidance and ideas. Understanding the personality traits of dolphins, and other species, may help professionals tailor the opportunities and experiences that animals have available to help them thrive in human care.

If you’re interested in reading more about personality differences in animals, the blog post on chicken choices at the zoo may be of interest to you. Curious to hear your reactions, thoughts and ideas — feel free to leave a comment below!

Learn more about the researchers

Blake Morton, University of Hull, United Kingdom

Lauren Robinson, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria

Sabrina Brando, AnimalConcepts, Teulada, Spain & University of Stirling, Scotland

Alex Weiss, Kyoto University Wildlife Research Center, Japan & University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Article

Morton, F. B., Robinson, L. M., Brando, S., & Weiss, A. (2021). Personality structure in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Journal of Comparative Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000259