no clockwork creatures

[…] Other scientists are exploring personal qualities that span phylogenies and allegories: Recent research suggests that highly sensitive, arty-type humans have a lot in common with squealing pigs and twitchy mice, and that to call a hypersensitive person thin-skinned or touchy might hold a grain of physical truth.

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?”

Alison M. Bell of the University of Illinois at Urbana, who studies personality in stickleback fish, said: “We’re not being cute and anecdotal, we’re looking at consistent differences in behavior that we can test and measure.”

Full article here (there’s a lot more to it): http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/science/06angi.html