title: Developmental and cross-situational stability in infant pigtailed macaque temperament.
abstract: 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.
authors: Washington National Primate Research Center and Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. adriennesussman@gmail.com
authors: Adrienne
authors: A
authors: Sussman
authors: James
authors: J
authors: Ha
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn / Q000254:growth & development / Q000523:psychology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005260:Female; D008254:Macaca nemestrina; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D013694:Temperament; D013997:Time Factors