Personality from the Perspective of Behavioral Ecology

Abstract

Behavioral ecologists consider behaviors that show significant between-individual variation as aspects of personality. When multiple aspects of personality covary, these are viewed as a behavioral syndrome. Meta-analyses have demonstrated that behaviors typically are repeatable and that behavioral syndromes are common across a wide variety of taxa. The core interest in behavioral ecology is to understand why such between-individual differences in behavior arise and how they are maintained. We present in this chapter an overview of two inter-connected research avenues: evolutionary quantitative genetics and individual optimization theories. We outline the basic premises of these approaches and summarize what empirical studies have demonstrated thus far. We emphasize the increasing recognition of the hierarchical nature of aspects of personality and behavioral syndromes in behavioral ecology, as well as the plasticity of personality and behavioral syndromes with respect to environmental conditions and to age. We present an overview of insights derived from explicit incorporation of between-individual variation in behavioral plasticity into current personality research in behavioral ecology, which emphasizes how personality is likely to be less consistent across individuals than originally perceived.