http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/science/06angi.html?pagewanted=1&ref=homepage&src=me
Some critics complain that the term “animal personality” is a bit too slick, while others worry that the entire enterprise smacks of that dread golem of biology, anthropomorphism — assigning human traits to nonhuman beings. Researchers in the field, however, defend their lingo and tactics. “Some of the behavior patterns we’re talking about are similar to what we call personality in human psychology literature,” said Max Wolf of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. “So why not call it personality in other animals?”
Maybe the problem isn't anthropomorphism, but anthropocentrism: we're not "assigning human traits to animals" but assuming that we are the only animals that can have certain traits. Hence the frequent 'scientific' argument that saying animals are sensitive to their physical and social environments--basically, that they are susceptible to things like stress, pain, and emotional distress--is "anthropomorphism", when if it is considered purely through an evolutionary lens it makes perfect sense. They're not our traits; they came from somewhere, didn't they? If we share traits with monkeys then shouldn't monkeys share traits with us?
Scanning through the comments after the article, I've become even more frustrated with the piece. Reader response is pretty much unanimous: of course animals have personalities, for the exact reasons grumped about above. But 'science' pretends not to understand this, or pretends that the way we understand it is inadequate to make any arguments for compassion towards animals. It's dialogues like this that illuminate how inadequate science actually is when it comes to thinking about animals. All the concerns about anthropomorphism--tiptoeing around thinking about animal experiences to the point where the concern serves as a major roadblock to any kind of understanding or compromise--seems very clearly skewed against animals' interests. Giving science authority over how and when we use animals means we wait until science realizes that animals aren't really ours to use, and it's abundantly clear that this is not going to happen.
Now that's just stupid to say that animals don't have emotions. Basically any psychological research done on animals is because they share our emotions--granted we can't ask them how they're feeling today now that they haven't gotten shocked, but we observe changes in behavior and then call that an emotion. For instance, when mice are freaked out, they freeze and (often) poop, which is pretty much what we do too.
ReplyDeleteWe understand human personality pretty much at about the same level that we understand animal personality. We don't know where it comes from, we don't really know why people are the way that they are, but we do recognize that reactions and behaviors are relatively stable **under certain conditions** which is exactly like my cat.