science

The Animal in You

The Animal in You is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Animal in You rather than just read about it. In short: The Animal in You is a 1995 non-fiction book by Roy Feinson, which posits a biological basis as to why people tend to exhibit personality traits similar to animal species. The book hypothesizes that through the process of convergent evolution, people adopt a niche set of behaviors enabling them to cope with their particular social milieu in the same way as individual animal species adapt to their environments.

Key takeaways

The Animal in You belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Animal in You to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Animal in You from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Animal in You is a 1995 non-fiction book by Roy Feinson, which posits a biological basis as to why people tend to exhibit personality traits similar to animal species. The book hypothesizes that through the process of convergent evolution, people adopt a niche set of behaviors enabling them to cope with their particular social milieu in the same way as individual animal species adapt to their environments. The book has been translated into ten different languages, including Mandarin, Japanese, Czech, Hebrew and French, and has been featured on CNN, The Dr. Phil Show and CBS The Talk

The Personality Test The Animal in You features a personality test of nine questions that collapses to one of 45 possible personality types. After readers answer the questions about their personality and physical attributes, the test returns a number corresponding to one of the 45 animal personality types, appearing in a look-up table. The underlying mechanisms for these types of tests are trivial for modern software based Internet tests, but this is the first known example of a book-based test able to resolve over 20 categories. The test is augmented by an interdependent weighting scheme wherein each question is assigned a different weight depending on how the other questions are answered.

The Animals The animal personalities are broken down into the broad categories shown below.

Carnivores Traits: Powerful, Optimistic, Territorial, Courageous, Fastidious, Athletic, Adventurous, Energetic, Attractive, Fun, Loving, Talented, Flamboyant, World Travelers, Loyal

Otter Wolf Sea Lion Wild Dog Walrus Lion Shark Tiger Bear Fox Wild Cat Badger Weasel Dog. Optimistic

Herbivores Traits: Sociable, Hard Working, Sober, Friendly, Family Oriented, Organized, Reliable, Methodical, Conservative

Baboon Elephant Bison Giraffe Cottontail Gorilla Deer Rhinoceros Hippo Sable Horse Sheep Mountain Goat Warthog Zebra.

Rodents & Insectivores Traits: Small, Creative, Thrifty, Active, Resilient, Cautious, Socially, loving, Bright

Mole Bat Porcupine Beaver Prairie Dog Shrew Mouse

Birds Traits: Energetic, Attractive, Fun-Loving, Talented, Flamboyant, World Travelers

Penguin Eagle Rooster Owl Swan Peacock Vulture

Reptiles Traits: Artistic Creative Quick Tempered Moody Quirky Unpredictable

Crocodile Snake

Animal Attraction "Animal Attraction" was a sequel to "Animal In You," published by St. Martin's Griffin Press in 1999. This book explored the types relationships suggested by the different personality types.

Citations in Academic Articles Pets and People: Companions in Commerce? Holbrook. Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing. Wallpach, Woodside. Are Birds of a Feather Flocking to the Beach? Black.

References

External links Official website The book's website was one of the earliest comprehensive personality tests available on the web and receives over "1,000,000 unique visitors per year".

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Animal in You

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Animal in You claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Animal in You before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Animal in You ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Animal in You

In research: The Animal in You appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Animal in You in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Animal in You is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American non-fiction books, English-language non-fiction books, Ethology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Animal in You outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Animal in You in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Animal in You means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Animal in You out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Animal in You in simple terms?

Why does The Animal in You matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Animal in You?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Animal in You.