Current Projects

VOLUNTEERS CURRENTLY (2/06) NEEDED TO ASSIST IN ANIMAL SHELTER STUDY
The API is currently recruiting volunteers to assist in a study conducted at
Austin's local municipal shelter, Town Lake Animal Center (1156 W Cesar Chavez, Austin, Texas).  The goals of this comprehensive study involves improving pet matching, assessing the the validity dog temperament assessments and enhancing animal welfare.  There are a number of volunteer opportunities available ranging from assisting with conducting actual temperament assessments, data entry and making adoption follow-up telephone calls.  Eligibility for the broad range of tasks available will depend on a number of factors.  Some of these factors include your accessibility to the research center, your time availability, animal handling experience, proficiency with excel, and customer service experience. Participants must fulfill a minimum weekly time commitment of 3 hours.
Interested persons, please contact Diane Mollaghan for more information at
dinamoll@mail.utexas.edu

DOG PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE
We are developing a comprehensive dog personality questionnaire which will be appropriate for use in assessing any type of dogs, from pet dogs to working explosive detection dogs. We are striving to create a reliable, valid measure with which we can readily assess large numbers of dogs.

For this project, we have collected a pool of dog "owners" who have been kind enough to volunteer to answer questions about their dog's personalities. For more information about this study, please e-mail Amanda Jones (amanda@animalpersonality.org).


SHELTER DOG TEMPERAMENT EXAMINATION & ASSESSMENT 
Many animal shelters nationwide employ a variety of different temperament tests.  Unfortunately, the reliability and validity of these tests has seldom been examined empirically.  Furthermore, a recent review of the temperament testing literature showed that although a large body of research has examined working dogs, few studies focus on shelter or pet dogs (Jones & Gosling, 2004).  The basic goal of our on-going study is to examine the predictive validity of several major temperament tests in an animal shelter context. 

For more information about this study, please e-mail Diane Mollaghan (diane@animalpersonality.org).

Publications

Gosling, S. D. (1998). Personality dimensions in spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 112, 107-118.

Gosling, S. D. (2001). From mice to men: What can we learn about personality from animal research? Psychological Bulletin, 127, 45-86.

Gosling, S. D., & John, O. P. (1999). Personality dimensions in non-human animals: A cross-species review. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 69-75.

Gosling, S. D., & Vazire, S. (2002). Are we barking up the right tree? Evaluating a comparative approach to personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 607-614.

Gosling, S. D., Kwan, V. S. Y., & John, O. P. (2003). A dog’s got personality: A cross-species comparative approach to evaluating personality judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1161-1169.

Jones, A. C., & Gosling, S. D. (in press). Temperament and Personality in Dogs (Canis familiaris): A Review and Evaluation of Past Research. Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Vazire, S., & Gosling, S. D. (2003).  The role of animal research in bridging psychology and biology.  American Psychologist, 58, 407-408.

Vazire, S., & Gosling, S. D. (in press). Personality and Temperament.  Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior.