Abstract
Changes in personality over ontogeny can occur even when every agent (individual or genotype) is exposed to the same set of cues, experiences or environmental conditions. A recent Bayesian model (Stamps and Krishnan, in press) shows how individual differences in the means and variances of prior distributions of estimates of variables such as danger can generate predictable individual differences in behavioral developmental trajectories, and predictable changes in the differential consistency (broad-sense repeatability) of behavior over ontogeny, even if every subject is reared and maintained under the same conditions. We use this model to highlight the distinction between potential plasticity (the ability of an agent to change its phenotype in response to different types of experience) and realized plasticity (the extent to which an agent’s phenotype actually changes in response to a specific experience), and to demonstrate why the realized behavioral developmental plasticity of a given agent might vary as a function of the type of cues to which that agent was exposed over ontogeny. We describe two commonly used experimental protocols for studying individual differences in developmental plasticity (within-individual versus replicate individual designs), discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each for investigating individual differences in the developmental plasticity of personality traits, and explain why replicate individual designs provide better estimates than within-individual designs of the potential developmental plasticity of behavioral traits. More generally, we suggest that a Bayesian approach to development, especially one which assumes that individuals differ with respect to the information provided by their immediate and distant ancestors, can provide valuable insights into how genes, epigenetic factors, maternal effects and personal experiences might combine across the lifetime to affect the development of personality and other behavioral traits.
Highlights
One of the defining criteria for personality in humans and animals is that individual differences in behavior are maintained across time (Caspi et al, 2005; Reale et al, 2007; Stamps and Groothuis, 2010a)
We show how the model can be used to illustrate the distinction between the potential and realized developmental plasticity of behavioral traits, and to show why relationships between initial scores for personality traits and the developmental plasticity of those traits would be expected to vary as a function of the cues to which individuals were exposed during ontogeny
WITHIN-INDIVIDUAL DESIGNS FOR DESCRIBING THE DEVELOPMENTAL PLASTICITY OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AS A FUNCTION OF EXPERIENCE Repeated exposure to cues with the same likelihood function we assume that individuals with 15 different prior distributions for the state of danger are continuously or repeatedly exposed to the same cues from birth or hatching until the end of the juvenile period
Summary
One of the defining criteria for personality in humans and animals is that individual differences in behavior are maintained across time (Caspi et al, 2005; Reale et al, 2007; Stamps and Groothuis, 2010a). A recent Bayesian model (Stamps and Krishnan, in press) shows how individual differences in the means and variances of prior distributions of estimates of variables such as danger can generate predictable individual differences in behavioral developmental trajectories, and predictable changes in the differential consistency (broad-sense repeatability) of behavior over ontogeny, even if every subject is reared and maintained under the same conditions.
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