ManyPrimates personality, well-being, demographics, and data linkage

What are we doing?

We are collecting demographic, personality, and well-being data and then linking these datasets to each other and data from other ManyPrimates studies.

As a platform that promotes large scale collaboration, ManyPrimates want to foster continuity in our community. By linking ManyPrimates datasets across studies, and incorporating behavioral as well as administrative demographic data, ManyPrimates can further enrich and broaden our phylogenetic understanding of the primate mind.

We are currently collecting data for this project!
First deadline to contribute data: August 31, 2023
(This is in coordination with MP2)

I want to contribute data. What do I do?

We are looking for researchers to contribute data for primates involved in ManyPrimates studies, but this is not a firm requirement. If you work with primates who you want to rate, then you are welcome to submit data!

What we need from you:

  • For each individual you work with, please fill out this form on personality and well-being. The form will ask for information on your primates’ personalities and well-being. The form can be submitted multiple times, and you should submit one for each individual primate.
  • Get 2 other people to fill out this form as well. The goal is to collect at least 3 personality and well-being ratings for every individual.
  • Please fill out this second form on individual demographics. This form only needs to be filled out once for each animal - we don’t need multiple raters for the same individuals in this case.

FAQs

When do you need to receive the forms by?

A primary goal of this project is linkage, most immediately to data from MP2 and MP3. Ideally we need the forms by the end of data collection for MP2. In the future, to maintain the linked MP database, we may issue further calls.

Which individual primates should we submit ratings for?

Although our emphasis is on rating individuals that have been or will be involved in ManyPrimates experiments, this is not a firm requirement. If you have an individual that does not like to participate, this does not mean you should not submit ratings for them. Leaving these individuals out will introduce bias, so if you are able, please rate non-participants as well.

Do the same people need to rate all the individuals in our group?

No, each primate just needs to be rated by people who know them, it doesn’t matter who else those people do or do not rate.

Who should I ask to fill in the forms?

In short, anyone who knows your study animals well, i.e. for at least a few months. Most frequently, this means keepers and other researchers, but there is room for others to participate as well, for example, long term volunteers.

What do I do if I can’t get two additional people who can do the ratings?

If you cannot get three raters, please still fill in the form for each individual. While three is ideal, one or two ratings can still yield usable data.

Our team is full of keen beans and lots of people are interested in submitting ratings. Can we submit more than three ratings per individual?

Absolutely!

Is there a paper version of the form we could use instead?

Yes! They can be downloaded here

Some of our raters prefer to work in a different language - are the forms available in any other languages?

We have many other language versions available (though they may need a bit of work). Please do not hesitate to get in touch about this.

I think personality and/or well-being ratings already exist for my primates. Do I need to rate them again?

Possibly no, we may be able to use your existing data. If you think or know that some of your primates were rated in the past, get in touch and we’ll facilitate bringing those ratings into the project.

What about ethical approval?

As with other MP projects, if you need ethical approval you’ll need to seek it from your institutions. However, this should be if anything easier because this project does not require direct interaction with any animals.

I would like more information or have a question not answered here

If you have any questions at all, please email manyprimates@gmail.com and someone from the team will be in touch shortly.

Future plans

In addition to linking these data into future ManyPrimates projects, we plan to compose a personality and well-being specific ManyPrimates paper. More information on this will be forthcoming, once we have a better idea of what data we will have.

Thank you for being one of ManyPrimates!

MP linkage coordination team
manyprimates@gmail.com