Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-50). Also available on the Internet.

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Roman epic authors extended, reinvented and created new wild animal representations that stood apart from traditional Greek epic renderings. The treatment of wild animals in seven Roman epics (Virgil’s Aeneid, Lucan’s Civil War, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid, Valerius’ Argonautica and Silius’ Punica) forms the basis of this thesis, but the extensive study of other relevant works such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Apollonius’ Argonautica allows greater insight into traditional Greek renderings and throws Roman developments into starker contrast. Initial stages of research involved collection and detailed examination of almost 900 epic references to wild animals. The findings from this preliminary research were analysed in the context of Pliny’s Natural History, Aristotle’s Historia Animalium, and other ancient works that reveal the Greeks’ and Romans’ views of wild animals. The accumulation of such a range of evidence made it possible for patterns of development to become evident. This thesis focuses on the epic representation of animals and considers a number of questions: 1) How Roman epic authors represented animals’ emotions and employed creatures’ thought processes. 2) How Roman epic authors examined the difference between wild and tame animals and manipulated the differences and similarities between humans and animals and culture and nature. 3) How wild animals were aligned with scientific and cultural beliefs that were particular to Roman society. 4) How animals were employed to signify foreign countries and how some epic animals came to be symbolic of nations. 5) How Roman epic authors represented particular aspects of animal behaviours with fresh insight, sometimes ignoring traditional representations and historiographic sources.

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 16, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-50).

Thesis (M.A. (Psychology)) - Rhodes University, 2008. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Counselling Psychology.

Since before the Neolithic Revolution, when human civilisation first emerged, humans and canines have lived, and died, together. This Scottish study is conducted in the field of animal-human interaction and, using qualitative methods, applies established insights from the sociology of health (born of human-to-human interaction) to a human-animal relationship. Specifically, this thesis explores death and dying in relations between the companion canines, and the human members, of ten families. Nonhuman illness narratives are found in profusion in this study, and it was also found to be possible to apply biographical disruption to nonhumans, when conceptualised as biographical disruption-by-proxy. Unexpectedly, there emerged from the data support for a four-fold model of canine selfhood, as forged within the family. This is, as far as I am aware, the first modelling of a specific nonhuman consciousness, within the discipline. Suffering was found to exist in both physical and non-physical forms for the companions, and a mutual vulnerability to loneliness, and desire for companionship, appears to be a powerful point of connection between the humans and the canines. Being together emerged as both a practice, and as an ideal, that moulded the human-canine relations, and it was regarded as unfitting for a canine to die alone. Companion canine dying comes forth as a negotiated process, shaped by a divide between gradual and sudden death. This work encountered developed narratives of departure, that seem to structure the experience of losing a companion. In particular the role of the expert is a privileged voice in the negotiations of dying, and the biomedical view is treated as being definitive. The role of the expert is not simply submitted to however, but a range of stances to veterinary authority are displayed, being; acquiescence, resistance and invalidation of the veterinary voice. Ultimately, whilst interplays of wellbeing are present, they are less biophysically grounded, than they are rooted in the everyday routines of life, in the rituals of eating, sleeping, walking, and playing together, that compose the shared world of the human and companion canine.

This thesis examines the relationship between individual differences in learning, personality, and social success in two groups of brown capuchin monkeys (Sapajus sp.) housed at the “Living Links Centre for Human Evolution” at Edinburgh Zoo, UK. Being able to learn quickly and efficiently likely helps primates achieve social success (defined here in terms of centrality within a social network), such as acquiring knowledge of others or learning social skills. Therefore, individuals that are better at learning were predicted to have greater social success than other group members. This prediction, however, contrasts with hypotheses generated from two other disciplines at the individual level: 1) the study of behavioural innovation, and 2) the study of individual differences, i.e. “personality”. In terms of behavioural innovation, better learners should have less social success than other group members because they are expected to rely more on problem-solving, rather than physical combativeness or status, to gain access to socioecological resources. In terms of personality, learning should have little or no direct relationship with social success because other individual differences, like sociability and fearfulness, should mediate primates’ social decision making. This thesis investigates each of these hypotheses. Personality was assessed in 127 capuchins from 7 international sites using the Hominoid Personality Questionnaire, and then validated at Living Links (LL) using behavioural codings; this was the first-ever description of personality structure in brown capuchins. Brown capuchins have five personality dimensions: Assertiveness, Openness, Sociability, Neuroticism, and Attentiveness. Ratings were consistent across observers, and predicted relevant behaviours among the LL capuchins over a year later (e.g. scores on Sociability predicted time spent in close proximity to others). “Social success” in the LL capuchins was assessed in terms of centrality in spatial proximity networks. Individual scores on social network centrality were significantly correlated with scores derived from a Principal Components Analysis of eight affiliative and agonistic behaviours among the LL capuchins, indicating that spatial proximity is a reliable measure of the quality of subjects’ social embeddedness within their groups. Social rank and two personality traits (Assertiveness and Sociability) were positively related to network centrality, while another personality trait (Neuroticism) was negatively related to centrality. Sociability was a significant predictor of network centrality even after controlling for social rank and the other personality traits, highlighting the importance of this personality trait in shaping the social success of capuchins beyond that of basic social rules (e.g. kinship, sex, and rank). Individual learning was assessed in the LL capuchins by administering two operant tasks to subjects under conditions of free choice participation. In Task 1, thirteen monkeys participated, and eight individuals met learning criteria (i.e. >80% trials correct over 3 consecutive sessions). In Task 2, fifteen monkeys participated, and five individuals met learning criteria; the monkeys that learned this second task were also among those individuals that learned Task 1. For monkeys that regularly participated in both tasks (i.e. >50% of sessions), their average performances (i.e. % trials correct) were significantly correlated with individual scores on Assertiveness, but not the other four personality traits, or individual differences in attention span during testing, the percent of sessions subjects participated during testing, the amount of scrounging events subjects directed towards others within their social group, or the percent of observation time subjects spent feeding within their main indoor/outdoor enclosures. In terms of social success, relatively better learners had lower social rank and network centrality compared to relatively poor learners. Also, compared to poorer learners, better learners were generally less likely to direct affiliative acts (e.g. grooming, food sharing, coalitionary support) to other group members. Controlling for Assertiveness (i.e. the only variable related to individual differences in subjects’ average learning performance), individual differences in learning performance were no longer significantly related to social rank, network centrality, or the amount of affiliative acts subjects initiated with others. Collectively, such findings contrast the hypothesis that better learners should (concurrently) be more socially successful than poorer learners, and instead are more reflective of hypotheses pertaining to behavioural innovation and/or the study of individual differences. Social rank and certain traits of personality (Assertiveness, Openness, Neuroticism, and Sociability) appear to interact with capuchins’ patterns of social interaction, and one personality trait (Assertiveness) may mediate how individual differences in learning are associated with differences in social success.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1993.

The aims of this research were to describe in rich phenomenological detail the recollected childhood experiences described by three South African adults of growing up with animals in the context of a traditionally African cultural perspective in South Africa; as well as to document the emotional, physical and social effects of inter-species relationships as described by these participants, in order to explore and situate these experiences in relation to broad international perspectives on the contribution of animals to human development. The question of how these described experiences correlate with broad international perspectives on the contribution of animals to human development comprised the hermeneutic of the study. Here it was found that the experiences of these South African individuals were generally in keeping with the trends found in the literature. Participants attributed to their childhood relationships with animals a variety of benefits. These benefits occur on a range of levels, from the physical to the cognitive, and the psychosocial. The emotional attachment of the participants to animals with whom they had interacted in childhood correlated with the nature of interspecies relationships as anticipated by the literature. Cultural differences in the conceptualisation of inter-species relationships, between western and traditionally African ideologies, appeared to influence the moral and ethical positions assumed by the participants, while the subjective nature of the described attachment between participants and animals remains qualitatively similar across cultures, when explored in relation to international research. The similarities between the experiences of the participants and international research findings lend credence to Wilson’s hypothesis that all human beings are potentially able to connect in deep and profound ways with their natural environment, and that this connection contributes to the development of social and cognitive skills, as well as constituting emotional support and stability. The research concludes with an examination of its own limitations and suggestions are made for further research.