Evolutionary Genetics of Personality in Nonhuman Primates

Abstract

Our whole conception and acknowledgement of personality – both scientific and quotidian – is based on the notion of difference. A personality is precisely that which distinguishes one individual from another. These differences have consequences for behavior, health, and well-being, but we are mostly ignorant of their evolutionary roots. For humans and other primates, evidence is coalescing around a common structure that describes personality differences usefully categorizable in terms of shared versus derived traits and consistent with known species differences (Gosling and John 1999; Weiss et al.2006). Although functional and genomic studies begin to hint at the proximate genetic and environmental factors that mix to produce differences in personality, we are still left with this wondrous puzzle: Why do these basic differences persist over evolutionary time scales as primates have speciated and evolved?