Individuals of many animal species are said to have a personality. It has been shown that some individuals are bolder than other individuals of the same species, or more sociable or more aggressive. In this paper, we analyse what it means to say that an animal has a personality. We clarify what an animal personality is, that is, its ontology, and how different personality concepts relate to each other, and we examine how personality traits are identified in biological practice. Our analysis shows that biologists often study specific personality traits, such as boldness, sociability or aggressiveness, rather than personalities in general. We claim that personality traits are best understood as dispositions and that they are operationally defined in terms of certain sets of behaviours, which are studied in specific experimental set-ups. Furthermore, we develop an integrative philosophical account that specifies and formalises three criteria for identifying personality traits, which are used in biological practice. For an individual animal to have a personality trait it must, first, behave differently than others ( Individual Differences ). Second, these behavioural differences must be stable over a certain time ( Temporal Stability ), and third, they must be consistent in different contexts ( Contextual Consistency ).

中文翻译：

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什么是动物性格？

据说许多动物物种的个体都有个性。已经表明，有些个体比同一物种的其他个体更大胆，或者更善于交际或更具有攻击性。在本文中，我们分析了说动物具有个性的含义。我们阐明了动物的个性是什么，即它的本体论，以及不同的个性概念如何相互关联，并研究如何在生物实践中识别个性特征。我们的分析表明，生物学家经常研究特定的个性特征，例如大胆、善于交际或好斗，而不是一般的个性。我们声称，人格特质最好被理解为性格，并且它们是根据某些行为集在操作上定义的，这些行为在特定的实验设置中进行了研究。此外，我们开发了一个综合的哲学解释，它指定和形式化了识别个性特征的三个标准，这些标准用于生物学实践。对于具有个性特征的个体动物，它必须首先表现得与其他动物不同（个体差异）。其次，这些行为差异必须在一定时间内保持稳定（Temporal Stability），第三，它们在不同的上下文中必须保持一致（Contextual Consistency）。