Personality structure in wild Eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii).

Abstract

A study of wild chimpanzees using a brief questionnaire identified four factors that only weakly resembled those identified in zoo- and laboratory-housed samples. To test whether the failure to recover these factors was attributable to the small number of questionnaire items sampled in that study, the present study obtained ratings on 40 chimpanzees in Budongo Park, Uganda on the 54-item Hominoid Personality Questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis using a matrix-free likelihood method for extracting factors obtained four personality factors-Dominance, Disagreeableness, Openness, and Extraversion-from 46 items that passed reliability screening. These factors resembled, but were not identical to, personality factors found in earlier samples of chimpanzees in human care. These findings are consistent with the notion that a universal structure of chimpanzee personality exists and that there may be some variation across habitats and populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).