Haage Marianne, Bergvall Ulrika A, Maran Tiit, Kiik Kairi, Angerbjörn Anders
Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Behav Processes. 2013 Nov;100:103-9. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2013.08.009. Epub 2013 Aug 26.
Non-human animal personality is defined as consistent behavioural differences across time and situations/contexts. Behaviours are, however, often plastic and to explain how plasticity and personality may coexist an adaptive framework has been developed. Still, there is little information on how personality is impacted by situations and contexts on an individual level. We investigated this in the European mink (Mustela lutreola) by performing a set of five experiments in two situations consisting of non-breeding and breeding season, and by using different test contexts. Three personality trait domains were identified; boldness, exploration and sociability. The levels of boldness and exploration changed between seasons but remained repeatable, which implies behavioural reaction norms and supports that the concept of personality remained applicable despite plasticity. Whilst males became bolder and more explorative in the breeding season females became shyer, which reflects European mink breeding behaviour. Furthermore, behaviours performed in mirror stimulus tests fell into different domains depending on whether, the test was conducted in the own territory or not, suggesting plasticity in the response towards conspecifics. To conclude, our results highlight the importance of situation and context for the expression of personality, and the significance of measuring multiple personality trait domains with several methods.
非人类动物的个性被定义为在不同时间和情境/背景下一致的行为差异。然而，行为往往具有可塑性，为了解释可塑性和个性如何共存，人们开发了一个适应性框架。尽管如此，关于个性在个体层面上如何受到情境和背景影响的信息仍然很少。我们通过在非繁殖季节和繁殖季节这两种情境下进行一组五个实验，并使用不同的测试背景，对欧洲水貂（Mustela lutreola）进行了研究。确定了三个个性特质领域：大胆、探索和社交性。大胆和探索的水平在不同季节有所变化，但仍然具有重复性，这意味着行为反应规范，并支持尽管存在可塑性，个性概念仍然适用的观点。雄性在繁殖季节变得更大胆、更具探索性，而雌性则变得更害羞，这反映了欧洲水貂的繁殖行为。此外，在镜像刺激测试中表现出的行为根据测试是否在自己的领地内进行而属于不同的领域，这表明对同种个体的反应具有可塑性。总之，我们的结果强调了情境和背景对个性表达的重要性，以及用多种方法测量多个个性特质领域的意义。
