SynthesisProceedings. Biological sciences2022
Terminology use in animal personality research: a self-report questionnaire and a systematic review.
Synthesis in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global meta-analysis reveals urban-associated behavioural differences among wild populations.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Pooled it
- Individual repeatability of avian migration phenology: A systematic review and meta-analysis.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Pooled it
- Chiroptera Personality-A Guide for Assessing Personality Variation in Bats: Ecological, Methodological and Statistical Considerations.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Individual variation in play in young chickens - assessment and connection to affective state and personality.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Personality, Stereotypy, and Responses to Crate Entry in Captive Giant Pandas.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Aggressive behavior as a predictor of home range size: findings from both range-restricted and widespread Darwin's finch species.Journal of ornithology · 2025Article
- Variations in Canine Behavioural Characteristics across Conventional Breed Clusters and Most Common Breed-Based Public Stereotypes.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Personality traits differentially affect components of reproductive success in a Neotropical poison frog.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Ecological and Fitness Correlates of Personality in a Long-lived Terrestrial Turtle.Herpetologica · 2023Article
- Fish personality: meta-theoretical issues, personality dimensions, and applications to neuroscience and psychopathology.Personality neuroscience · 2023Review
- Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Article
- Article
- Sex-specific covariance between metabolic rate, behaviour and morphology in the ground beetlePeerJ · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Whether animal personality studies provide insights of broader evolutionary and ecological relevance to the field of behavioural ecology is frequently questioned. One of the sources of controversy is the vast, but often vague terminology present in the field. From a statistical perspective, animal personality is defined as among-individual variance in behaviour. However, numerous conceptual definitions of animal personality are available in the literature. Here, we performed (i) a self-report questionnaire and (ii) a systematic literature review to quantify how researchers interpreted conceptual and statistical definitions commonly used in animal personality research. We also compared whether data obtained from the questionnaire matched with data from the literature review. Among the 430 self-reported researchers that participated in our questionnaire, we observed discrepancies in key questions such as the conceptual definition of animal personality or the interpretation of repeatability. Furthermore, our literature review generally confirmed the global patterns revealed by the questionnaire. Overall, we identified common disagreements within the field of animal personality and discussed potential solutions. We advocate for adopting a terminology that avoids ambiguous interpretations and helps to make more explicit the widespread connotations implicit in the label 'animal personality'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.