Lecture 8 Flashcards
Who was the first person to categorise personality in a way that it could be put in a table?
Galen, 129AD, Greece
How did Galen, 129AD, Greece work out which personality categories people are in?
Dissected corpses
How many personality type categories are in Myer-Briggs personality types, 1944?
16
What are the two axis on Myers-Briggs personality types table? (16 categories)
. Extroverted- Introverted
. Judging- extraverted
(So can be various combinations of that)
What can the Myers-Briggs personality types be apply to?
Only applies to humans
How did McCrae and Costa Jr (1989) categorise personality types?
Using the five factor model.
Use continuous categorisations (spectrums) instead of using categories. So, you have 5 dimensions/ factors and you a number for each of these (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism)
What can the 5 five factor model be applied to?
Humans and animals
In animal research, the concept of personality has been used to refer to what?
The existence of behavioural and physiological differences among individuals of the same species, which are stable over time and across different contexts or situations
In the concept of personality the behavioural and physiological differences among individuals of the same species has to be stable over time. What does this mean?
Means that personalities have to be stable in that if an individual is aggressive when you test it if you go back a few weeks later it still has to be aggressive and a couple of different situations as well
In animal research, what have personalities been referred to as?
Temperament, behaviour syndromes m, coping styles, or simply predispositions
How is behavioural ecology unrealistic in many ways?
It assumes that things just evolve to optima
Where does animal personality tend to be studied?
Both in the lab and field
What is female pre-copulatory cannibalism (e.g. six-spotted fishing spider)?
Female eats male during sexual interactions but before copulation- so the male approaches and the female eats the male before copulation has occurred
What is the suggested reason for female pre-copulatory cannibalism in some spiders?
It is suggested that the reason it evolved like this is because it is useful for juvenile spiders to be aggressive
What were the findings of the Johnston and Sih’s 2005 lab study looking at hetero-specific prey? (Looking at spiders with precopulatory sexual cannibalism)
. Voracity towards hetero-specific prey results in high feeding rates, large adult size, and increased fecundity (so being aggressive to different species of prey is useful)
. Juvenile and adult voracity are positively correlated (i.e. voracity is a consistent trait over ontogeny)
. Voracity (so being aggressive) towards hetero-specific prey is positively correlated with precopulatory sexual cannibalism
. Assays of antipredator behaviour further released positive correlations between boldness towards predators, voracity and precopulatory sexual cannibalism
What were the conclusions from Johnston and Sih’s 2005 lab study looking at precopulatory sexual cannibalism and hetero-specific prey?
Precopulatory sexual cannibalism in D. triton is part of a behavioural syndrome spanning at least three major contexts: foraging, predator avoidance and mating (basically found that it is beneficial to be aggressive as a juvenile)
What has been shown to positively correlate with boldness in three spined sticklebacks?
Aggressive behaviour
How does the introduction of rainbow trout (predator) to a low predated population of sticklebacks alter their behaviour?
Sticklebacks from a low predated population show no boldness-aggressiveness correlation, but after predation of half the population by rainbow trout the correlation appears
What is the suggested reason for why stickleback populations show no boldness-aggressiveness correlation but after predation of half the population by rainbow trout there is a correlation?
Is suggested that predators take the ones that do not have this positive correlation between boldness-aggressiveness. So suggest that there is some sort of phenotypic plasticity that shifts behaviour
Describe what the sticklebacks living in small, eutrophic lakes (what they feed on, look like etc.)
. Feeds from the bottom and takes benthic prey
. Cannibalises eggs in the nest, so males protect the nest in these sticklebacks
. Conspecifics come along and try to eat the eggs, so the males of this type diversionary display to take them away from the nest and the males have evolved to be drab so they don’t attract conspecifics to the eggs and they don’t dance about too much on the bottom of the lake
Describe eutrophic lakes
Have a lot of farmer fertiliser in them and they have a lot of weeds growing in them and they are fairly low in oxygen
Describe oligotrophic lakes
The ones that are fairly healthy, often have many nutrients in them
Describe the sticklebacks that live in deep, oligotrophic lakes
. Fatter and have bigger mouths than the ones in eutrophic lakes
. Feed in the water column
. Cannibalism of eggs in nests has been lost because eggs don’t live in the water column they live at the bottom
. The diversionary display is not needed so that has been lost
. Males being pretty has come back because they don’t care about drawing attention to themselves
. Have planktonic heads
What is agonistic (aggressive) behaviour correlated with in great tits?
Exploratory behaviour
