As Jane Goodall did not go through proper collegiate training, she tended to use unconventional practices in her research. Firstly, she named the primates she was studying, instead of numbering them. Numbering was conventionally used to keep an emotional distance between the researcher and the subjects, so as not to interfere with the observation process. However, by naming the chimpanzees instead of numbering them, and by concluding that the chimpanzees have unique and individual personalities, Goodall was accused of the “sin” of anthropomorphism. Also, it was suggested that Goodall’s methods of setting up feeding stations and her “banana club” might have altered normal foraging patterns of the chimpanzees, which might have in turn led to higher levels of aggression and conflict among the primates. This higher level of aggression might have been the cause of the conflicts that Goodall observed in her memoir, which was not observed before she arrived. Thus, these were seen as distortions of normal chimpanzee behavior.
Goodall also observed some occurrences of unconventional primate behavior, which is linked to their unique personalities. For one, she observed that they had a tendency for aggression and violence. During her stay with the chimpanzees, she saw dominant females biting and attacking and even killing the lower ranked females to exert their power. Sometimes, the chimpanzees even resorted to cannibalism, especially when there is a shortage of food. Goodall also challenged two long standing beliefs about chimpanzees, namely the fact that only humans could construct and use tools, and that chimpanzees are vegetarian. The chimpanzees were observed to use stones as weapons against intruders, or to use twigs to “fish” for termites in their nests. Over the years, the chimpanzees were also seen to eat meat. Besides bananas and plants, chimpanzees were observed hunting for other smaller primates such as the colobus monkey. In Gombe, chimpanzees hunt and eat almost a third of the colobus monkey population.