Wolf Personality How do different wolves behave differently? Answer: through their personality. 'Personality' is someone's unique emotions, thoughts and behaviour, and like people, no two wolves have the same personality. Wolves' Individual Personalities Wolves are pictured in the common mind as brutal ferocity personified. But people who live up close to wolves for a long time are struck by their friendliness and varied but unique individual characters. Lois Crisler was an American who set off in the 1950's to film wildlife in Alaska's Arctic. On her travels she raised two wolf cub littermates found by Inuit and wrote about them and her experiences. She describes Lady and Trigger as a contrasting pair. Lady was spirited, self-reliant, fearless, jolly, outgoing, always took the lead, ever inventive, adventurous and busy. Lois could identify with Lady's personality but her brother - lordly and reserved - was more difficult for her to comprehend. Robert Lyle (1920-2003) was another oddity. Although from Britain, he established a wolf centre in Portugal in 1989. He built up some wolf packs and daily enjoyed their company for several years. He also wrote about his wolves: Deneb, Musca & Neb Deneb was a natural leader. His mastery of the pack as Alpha male was total. Outside the mating season he never had to assert his authority, so self-confident was he. He was a remarkably tolerant wolf, even when feeding, letting other wolves help themselves to food, and he had a close friendship with his brother, Neb. Neb was an excellent second in command to his brother. He was the wildest of all the wolves and the most playful with cubs. Neb never tried to challenge his brother for leadership but always supported him and showed great affection for his brother's mate, Musca. Musca was Deneb's mate and physically strong but gentle, kind, patient and dignified. She never harassed other wolves and was always restrained. But after Deneb died she lost her first lady rank and became detached and remote. When her health failed she let pack life slip by and became a recluse. Sandalo & Morena Deneb's counterpart in a neighbouring pack was Sandalo. He was also a born leader, like Deneb, but possibly not as confident of himself; he was less tolerant or easy-going than Deneb and assertive to other pack members, impressing his social position on them. And unlike Deneb, Sandalo spent a lot more time in the company of his mate, carrying out patrols and other activities with her. Whereas Deneb seemed comfortable and accepted his life, Sandalo endlessly explored for weaknesses of his enclosure's high fence. Sandalo's mate was Morena, a surprisingly resilient and vigorous wolf but not physically powerful. She was happy in Sandalo's company and sternly kept down her rival, Clarinha. Manchas & Clarinha One day Clarinha and Manchas, Sandalo's brother, were put together in their own enclosure. Clarinha flourished when she became Manchas' mate. She was not as physically strong as Morena, but was more robust, and was relax, kind, loveable and never harsh to other wolves. Manchas took over his new role with Clarinha well enough but, although large and strong, seemed less of a leader than the other alpha males. He was possibly not as confident of himself as he spent a lot of time defending his territory from assumed outside threats. He also seemed a little timid because he was the only wolf to remain behind when the other wolves broke out of the Wolf Centre with Sandalo. Animal Personality Research Everyone familiar with farm animals, cats and dogs, knows that each individual has his own unique temperament. Rationally, since all mammal species share an evolutionary history and therefore share basic anatomical and physiological features, it makes sense to assume that mammals also share at least basic personality characteristics with humans. However, research into animal personality has not run smoothly. Along with animal thinking and animal consciousness, animal personality was a taboo subject to discuss in scientific circles until very recently. By trying to make science based on solid objective evidence, scientists renounced a subject as seemingly evanescent as individual dispositions. If you wanted to make a respectable career as a scientist you had to fall in. But progress finally won out. Research into animal personality has climbed up front for scientific investigation in the last few years and is now an exciting although still small field. The Big Five Personality Factors To get a grip on animal personality (and this includes wolves), researches have stared off by building their work on human personality traits. So what are human personality traits that they are so important for understanding animals (and wolves)? Dozens of personality traits have been identified in humans. The number grew so large that it was necessary to combine them into fewer, more manageable groupings. Eventually it was recognised that almost all personality traits can be combined into five broad dimensions, categories of basic personality types: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. They are sometimes referred to as OCEAN, after their acronym, but are more usually called the 'Big Five'. Different personality researchers inevitably put forward slightly different versions of the Big Five and the Five are so broad that they inevitably lose some information. Nevertheless, the Big Five are reasonably consistently reliable, serve as a useful framework for thinking about human personality, and can be used to assess the personality of individual people. The Big Five Human Personality Dimensions The pairs of adjectives are ranges which outline each dimension. Openness to Experience (or Intellect) Associated with imagination, ideas, creativity and audacity. Conventional - Inventive Adventurous - Cautious Intellectual - Unreflective Conscientiousness Associated with competence, self-discipline and achievement and perseverance. Careful - Reckless Reliable - Erratic Dependable - Neglectful Agreeableness Associated with trust, helping others, caring and forgiving. Good natured - Irritable Kindly - Callous Generous - Selfish Extraversion Associated with sociability, activity and an outgoing uninhibited nature. Sociable - Solitary Talkative - Taciturn Assertive - Inhibited Neuroticism (or Emotional Stability) Associated with vulnerability, anxiety, distress and depression. Anxious - Calm Depressed - Cheerful Insecure - Confident Dog Personality: The Big Four Personality is well researched in humans. Relatively little is know about other species at present. But a start to learn about animal personality has been made on dogs (and via dogs to wolves). For example, one research group in the US (Gosling et al) assessed the ability of owners, peers and independent judges to distinguish the personalities of domestic dogs. Dogs were rated using criteria common to human personality studies, that is the Big Five, which had previously been identified as relevant to canine personality. The Big Five dimension of 'Conscientiousness', however, was not found as an autonomous dimension in dogs. It has been found only in humans and chimpanzees so far. Therefore a four-dimensional model for personality traits in dogs was adopted: 'The Big Four'. The Big Four Canine Personality Dimensions The Big Four and their equivalent human dimensions. Energy - human Extraversion Affection - human Agreeableness Emotional Reactivity - human Neuroticism Intelligence - human Openness to Experience/Intellect The researchers found that when people assessed dog personalities their judgements were as accurate as assessments made for human personalities. Although evaluations were not always in complete accord (same as in human personality), they nevertheless followed a similar pattern of consistency. Thus it can be demonstrated that humans are not the only animals to be endowed with personality. Dogs and humans are most likely to share certain dimensions of personality. Dogs have branched off as a sub-species from wolves. So presumably much the same about dogs can be said about wolves, only some of the detail might be different. However, unlike the Big Five personality dimensions for humans, no single model of personality dimensions for dogs has been adopted generally. Other researchers (Svartberg et al) have isolated alternative dimensions for dogs, such as: Playfulness, Curiosity/Fearlessness, Desire to Chase, Sociability, and Aggressiveness. For wolves in the wild it is easy to speculate that the counterpart of 'Aggressiveness' and 'Desire to Chase' is equivalent respectively to social dominance and hunting. Inherited Or Acquired? How much of personality is genetically inherited and how much as acquired by learning is a question still debated, but hereditary is likely the greater part. Human twins separated at birth and brought up in different circumstances show remarkable similarities in personality. And breeding generations of mice and rats for strains of contrasting traits, like high and low anxiety, demonstrate that personality traits can be passed down the generations. So most wolf personality is likely to be passed on in the genes: confident friendly wolves tend to make confident friendly cubs. But as with many inherited qualities there are bits hammered in the forge of upbringing, learning and circumstance. A wolf cub girdled by devoted, positive parents and helpers and exposed to lots of profitable experience is likely to grow into an adaptable, well adjusted wolf. On the other side of the coin, potentially sturdy personalities can be ravaged by an impoverished upbringing. Wolf Role Personalities Each wolf in his pack plays a character befitting his social status. In a social situation, a dominant wolf stands fast and asserts himself. A subordinate wolf cringes and fawns as necessary. Their characters are so convincing that they look like inherited, immutable personalities. But these 'personalities' are as deceptive and superficial as masks. The wolves are acting social roles. Literally overnight a dominant wolf may be toppled and replaced by a subordinate wolf and, as if by a miracle, their 'personalities' are reversed: the once dominant animal grovels and the erstwhile cringer walks aloof. It looks like two new wolves have suddenly materialised. Each individual, however, is only acting out his assumed social role or the one thrust upon him. Role reversals should not surprise us into believing a wolf has suddenly undergone a stupefying personality transformation. A wolf's real personality is often hidden under the character of his social position. This is clearly shown by Robert Lyle's wolves, above. Without role playing, life in a pack would be confusing and disruptive. A constantly cringing-dominant wolf would lose his position. A continually assertive-subordinate wolf would be battered by his seniors with the risk of eventual injury. Wolves playing roles brings order and peace. Personality's Function Why have a personality? Different personalities are useful because parents cannot know what the future holds in an environment which is constantly changing over the centuries and cannot be predicted. Consequently, it is better to make offspring with different mixtures of personality traits so that at least some personalities are likely to cope better than others at surviving the circumstances they find themselves in, and in turn pass on their genes to future generations. References Crisler, Lois (1959): Arctic Wild. Secher & Warburg, London. 274p. Narrative journal of Lois Crisler's 18 month stay in the Arctic filming animals and raising a litter of wolf cubs - years before most people began studying wolves. Gosling S D, Kwan V S Y & John O P (2003): A Dog's Got Personality: a cross-species comparative approach to personality judgements in dogs and humans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85 (6), 1161-1169. Lyle, Robert (2000): Lycoptos: a comparative study of the ways of Iberian wolves in three captive packs. Wolf Society of Great Britain. Svartberg K & Forkman B (2002): Personality traits in domestic dog (Canis familiaris). Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 79 (2), 133-155. © Wolf Trust 2004. All rights reserved.

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