Scientists have re-conducted experiments by Jane Goodall, one of the most famous primatologists in the world, and concluded that her claims of "personality" in chimpanzees were not fictional and that apes do have unique behaviors, according to an article published in Scientific Data …
“In her early days at the future Gombe National Park, Jane was greatly amazed at how different the behavior of different chimpanzees was, and how these differences in character were similar to what distinguishes humans from each other. When she told one of her colleagues about this, he advised her to “forget” about these observations and not tell anyone about it. Fortunately, she didn’t do that,”says Alexander Weiss, a primatologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Jane Goodall, one of the most famous primatologists in the world today, made a sensational statement in 1973 - she said that wild chimpanzees living in Tanzania have a unique character and personality that is not inferior in complexity to similar characteristics of a person.
These statements were met with very hostile reactions from the scientific community. At that time, virtually all scientists believed that all animals behave exactly the same and that their behavior is driven by instincts, and not some complex mental processes in their heads, and that chimpanzees and other primates, in principle, cannot have what is a "unique" trait of a person.
Some of the skeptics agreed to visit the Gombe National Park, where primates lived, and try to compile their psychological profile by interviewing the reserve staff. As it turned out, differences in the behavior of chimpanzees, especially females and males, did exist, but their discovery did not convince most of the skeptics - they said that Goodall's methods of observation were fundamentally flawed, and that she attributed the human traits she wanted to the apes. to see in them.
Weiss and his colleagues, who have been studying the psychology of primates for several decades, decided to test the conclusions of the famous primatologist by checking her notes and actually following in her footsteps in the forests of Tanzania, observing the life of a tribe of several dozen wild chimpanzees for almost seven years.
After completing another cycle of observations, the scientists decided to repeat Goodall's experiments - they asked several dozen Tanzanians who helped them observe monkeys to assess their character and personality using a slightly different set of criteria compared to the one used by the "skeptics" in 1973.
If the ideas of Goodall and her associates were erroneous, then, as Weiss expected, the general traits, features in the behavior of individuals of different sexes and the degree of differences in the characters of different individuals, recorded now and in 1973, will differ significantly. If they are similar, then Goodall's statements will be true.
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As it turned out, the psychological profiles of chimpanzees were almost the same in the current study and in the Goodall experiment - for example, monkeys who showed trust in humans and their relatives were also more docile, and modest animals usually rarely showed aggression and extroversion.
Not all such characteristics were in common between humans and chimpanzees - in particular, humble monkeys were usually rarely open, and "companionable" monkeys were, on the contrary, ready to establish new contacts. Both of these personality traits are usually rarely related in this way, the reason for which remains to be studied.
Further analysis of this data, Weiss and his colleagues hope, will help scientists understand what else distinguishes the character of chimpanzees and humans, and reveal some of the mysteries of the evolution of our species.