Caregiver–chimpanzee interactions with species-specific behaviors

Jensvold, Mary Lee; Buckner, Jacquelyn C.; Stadtner, Gina B.

doi:10.1075/is.11.3.04jen

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Caregivers can incorporate chimpanzee behaviors into their own interactions with chimpanzees [ 52 , 53 ]. For example, food grunting to generate enthusiasm about a tasty meal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Preliminary Assessment of Compassion Fatigue in Chimpanzee Caregivers

Jensvold

2022

Animals

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Compassion fatigue is defined as “traumatization of helpers through their efforts at helping others”. It has negative effects on clinicians including reduced satisfaction with work, fatigue, irritability, dread of going to work, and lack of joy in life. It is correlated with patients’ decreased satisfaction with care. Compassion fatigue occurs in a variety of helping professions including educators, social workers, mental health clinicians, and it also appears in nonhuman animal care workers. This study surveyed caregivers of chimpanzees using the ProQOL-V to assess the prevalence of compassion fatigue among this group. Compassion satisfaction is higher than many other types of animal care workers. Conversely, this group shows moderate levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress; higher levels than other types of animal care workers and many medical professions. While compassion fatigue has an effect on the caregiver’s experience, it has potential to affect animal welfare. Caregivers are an integral part of the chimpanzee social network. Compassion fatigue affects the caregiver’s attitude, this could in turn affect the relationship and degrade the experience of care for captive chimpanzees. Compassion fatigue can be mitigated with professional development, mindfulness training, interrelationships among staff, and specialized training. This preliminary assessment indicates the work ahead is educating caregivers about compassion fatigue and implementing procedures in sanctuaries to mitigate burnout and secondary traumatic stress.

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“…Caregivers can incorporate chimpanzee behaviors into their own interactions with chimpanzees [ 52 , 53 ]. For example, food grunting to generate enthusiasm about a tasty meal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Preliminary Assessment of Compassion Fatigue in Chimpanzee Caregivers

Jensvold

2022

Animals

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“…[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]) and the behaviour of zoo-housed primates in the presence of familiar humans (e.g. [10,11,[17][18][19][20]). Moreover, recent research has demonstrated that several primate species show differential behavioural responses to familiar versus unfamiliar people [10,11,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity mediates apes' attentional biases toward human faces

et al. 2022

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In zoos, primates experience markedly different interactions with familiar humans, such as the zookeepers who care for them, compared with those with unfamiliar humans, such as the large volume of zoo visitors to whom they are regularly exposed. While the behaviour of zoo-housed primates in the presence of unfamiliar, and to a lesser extent familiar, humans has received considerable attention, if and how they spontaneously distinguish familiar from unfamiliar people, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying the relationships they form with familiar and unfamiliar humans, remain poorly understood. Using a dot-probe paradigm, we assessed whether primates (chimpanzees and gorillas) show an attentional bias toward the faces of familiar humans, with whom the apes presumably had a positive relationship. Contrary to our predictions, all subjects showed a significant attentional bias toward unfamiliar people's faces compared with familiar people's faces when the faces showed a neutral expression, both with and without a surgical face mask on, but no significant attentional bias when the faces showed a surprised expression. These results demonstrate that apes can spontaneously categorize humans based on familiarity and we argue that the attentional biases the apes showed for unfamiliar human faces reflect a novelty effect.

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Human–animal relationships in zoo‐housed orangutans (P. abelii) and gorillas (G. g. gorilla): The effects of familiarity

Smith

2014

American J Primatol

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I examined human-animal relationships (HARs) in zoo-housed orangutans (Pongo abelii) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) to see if they followed patterns similar to conspecific relationships in great apes and humans. Familiarity and social relationships guide humans' and great apes' behaviors with conspecifics. Inter-individual relationships, based on shared social history, and "generalized" relationships, based on a history of interactions with relevant classes of individuals, guide behavior with familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics, respectively. I examined whether both familiarity and social relationships similarly guides great apes' cross-species interactions with humans. I used repeated measures MANOVA to compare hourly rates and average durations of ape-initiated human-directed behaviors (HDBs) between familiar and unfamiliar humans and between great ape species. HDB patterns were consistent with familiarity-based HAR predictions, indicating more negative relationships with unfamiliar humans and more positive relationships with familiar humans. Findings for unfamiliar humans are consistent with negative effects of humans on apes' behavior reported in traditional visitor effect studies (VES). However, findings for familiar humans may be overlooked in VES due to pooling across levels of human familiarity or failure to consider humans other than primarily unfamiliar visitors. Additionally, species differences in apes' HDBs suggest that data pooling across species, common in many zoo studies, may mask important differences. These findings have important methodological implications for studies of human-animal interaction as well as for captive animal wellbeing.

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Caregiver–chimpanzee interactions with species-specific behaviors

Cited by 5 publications

References 26 publications

A Preliminary Assessment of Compassion Fatigue in Chimpanzee Caregivers

A Preliminary Assessment of Compassion Fatigue in Chimpanzee Caregivers

Familiarity mediates apes' attentional biases toward human faces

Human–animal relationships in zoo‐housed orangutans (P. abelii) and gorillas (G. g. gorilla): The effects of familiarity

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