Personality traits change after an opportunity to mate.

ABSTRACT: There is growing evidence that personality traits can change throughout the life course in humans and nonhuman animals. However, the proximate and ultimate causes of personality trait change are largely unknown, especially in adults. In a controlled, longitudinal experiment, we tested whether a key life event for adults--mating--can cause personality traits to change in female threespine sticklebacks. We confirmed that there are consistent individual differences in activity, sociability and risk-taking, and then compared these personality traits among three groups of females: (i) control females; (ii) females that had physically mated, and (iii) females that had socially experienced courtship but did not mate. Both the physical experience of mating and the social experience of courtship ca

SUBMITTER: Monestier C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7282925 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature