Abstract
We studied personality, subjective well-being, and hair cortisol level, in common marmosets Callithrix jacchus, a small, cooperatively breeding New World monkey, by examining their associations with one another and genotypes. Subjects were 68 males and 9 females that lived in the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies. Personality and subjective well-being were assessed by keeper ratings on two questionnaires, hair samples were obtained to assay cortisol level and buccal swabs were used to assess AVPR1a, OPRM1 and DAT genotypes. Three personality domains—Dominance, Sociability, and Neuroticism—were identified. Consistent with findings in other species, Sociability and Neuroticism were related to higher and lower subjective well-being, respectively. Sociability was also associated with higher hair cortisol levels. The personality domains and hair cortisol levels were heritable and associated with genotypes: the short form of AVPR1a was associated with lower Neuroticism and the AA genotype of the A111T SNP of OPRM1 was related to lower Dominance, lower Neuroticism, and higher hair cortisol level. Some genetic associations were not in directions that one would expect given findings in other species. These findings provide insights into the proximate and ultimate bases of personality in common marmosets, other primates and humans.
Highlights
Studies of common marmosets Callithrix jacchus, a small New World monkey species, have identified similarities between the domains along which their personality traits are organized and the ‘personality domains’ of more cognitively advanced species
The first polymorphism that we examined was the arginine vasopressin receptor 1 A (AVPR1a) gene
Sociability and Neuroticism were associated with higher and lower subjective well-being, respectively, and Sociability was associated with higher hair cortisol levels
Summary
Studies of common marmosets Callithrix jacchus, a small New World monkey species, have identified similarities between the domains along which their personality traits are organized and the ‘personality domains’ of more cognitively advanced species. Studies of common marmoset personality found that the reliabilities of ratings were within the range of those identified in humans[3,4], evidence for sex and age differences[3], evidence that their personality is influenced by the social environment[5], and evidence for associations between personality domains and both behaviours[4,5] and the serotonergic system in the brain[6]. We built on these previous findings by determining the degree to which the correlates of common marmoset personality resembled those of other nonhuman primates and humans. We tested whether individual differences in personality or hair cortisol level, like those of humans[20,21] and those of nonhuman primates[22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29], were heritable and whether they were associated with any of four genetic polymorphisms described below
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