SynthesisProceedings. Biological sciences2018
Meta-analysis reveals weak associations between intrinsic state and personality.
Synthesis in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 145 citations in OpenAlex.
- Terminology use in animal personality research: a self-report questionnaire and a systematic review.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Linking personality and cognition: a meta-analysis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Pooled it
- Environmental coupling of heritability and selection is rare and of minor evolutionary significance in wild populations.Nature ecology & evolution · 2018Pooled it
- Does energy minimisation constrain behavioural plasticity? Long-term activity budgets of a model folivore-frugivore.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- Male conspicuous coloration covaries with aggression but not with exploration in the short-lived annual fish Nothobranchius guentheri.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Integrating Lab- and Field-Based Approaches to Decipher Individuals' Response to Anthropogenic Change.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Estimating (Non)Linear Selection on Reaction Norms: A General Framework for Labile Traits.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Resting metabolic rate is repeatable, but does not affect call characteristics, in the gray treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- State-behaviour feedbacks between boldness and food intake shape escape responses in fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus).Communications biology · 2025Article
- Flexible males, proactive females: increased boldness/exploration damping with time in male but not female colonists.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Host traits rather than migration and molting strategies explain feather bacterial load in Palearctic passerines.iScience · 2024Article
- Age-Related Plasticity Integration in Male CicadasEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Predation Risk Experienced by Tadpoles Shapes Personalities Before but Not After Metamorphosis.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Context-dependent effects of thermal acclimation on physiological correlates of animal personality in Asiatic toads.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Testing personality-pace-of-life associations via artificial selection: insights from selected lines of rainbow trout on the context-dependence of correlations.Biology letters · 2024Review
- The relative importance of metabolic rate and body size to space use behavior in aquatic invertebrates.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Sex- and state-dependent covariation of risk-averse and escape behavior in a widespread lizard.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Phylogenetic meta-analysis reveals system-specific behavioural type-behavioural predictability correlations.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Personality variation is eroded by simple social behaviours in collective foragers.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Developmental feedbacks and the emergence of individuality.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Individual differences in behaviour characterize humans and animals alike. A hot field in behavioural ecology asks why this variation in 'personality' evolved. Theory posits that selection favours the integration of 'intrinsic state' and behaviour. Metabolism, hormones, energetic reserves and structural size have particularly been proposed as states covarying with behaviour among-individuals, either genetically or through plasticity integration. We conducted a meta-analysis estimating the amount of among-individual variation in behaviour attributable to variation in state. Our literature search showed that only 22% of the studies claiming to estimate individual-level associations between state and behaviour actually did so. Our meta-analysis revealed that relatively aggressive, bold, explorative and/or active individuals had relatively high metabolic rates, hormone levels, body weights and/or body sizes. The proportion of among-individual variation common to state and behaviour was nevertheless small (approx. 5%). This means that (i) adaptive explanations involving intrinsic states fail to explain much individual variation in behaviour, (ii) empiricists should consider nonlinear, additive or interactive effects of (multiple) intrinsic states, (iii) explanations not involving intrinsic states might be important, or (iv) empirical tests of state-dependent personality theory were inappropriate. Our meta-analysis highlights the importance of feedback between empiricists and theoreticians in the study of adaptive behavioural variation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.