Developmental and cross-situational stability in infant pigtailed macaque temperament

摘要

We assessed developmental stability and context generalizability of temperament in pigtailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) from the University of Washington Infant Primate Research Lab. A principal components analysis condensed 6 behavioral measures into 2 components, interpreted as reactivity and boldness. Changes in these measures over the 1st 10 months of development showed a trend toward calmer and bolder behavior with age, with significant individual variation in the pattern of change. Boldness showed a quadratic pattern of change, whereas reactivity decreased linearly. We also studied the relationship between temperament and response to a novelty probe. The magnitude of the response to the novelty probe decreased slightly over time, and boldness and reactivity in a familiar setting did not predict these changes in response to novelty. In a 2nd principal components analysis, reactivity to novelty represented a distinct aspect of temperament. Our results demonstrate developmental changes and context dependency in macaque behavior.