Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish.
Consistent individual differences in cognitive appraisal and emotional reactivity, including fearfulness, are important personality traits in humans, non-human mammals, and birds. Comparative studies on teleost fishes support the existence of coping styles and behavioral syndromes also in poikilothe...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2011-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3227632?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1831749310319951872 |
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| author | Catarina I M Martins Patricia I M Silva Luis E C Conceição Benjamin Costas Erik Höglund Øyvind Øverli Johan W Schrama |
| author_facet | Catarina I M Martins Patricia I M Silva Luis E C Conceição Benjamin Costas Erik Höglund Øyvind Øverli Johan W Schrama |
| author_sort | Catarina I M Martins |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Consistent individual differences in cognitive appraisal and emotional reactivity, including fearfulness, are important personality traits in humans, non-human mammals, and birds. Comparative studies on teleost fishes support the existence of coping styles and behavioral syndromes also in poikilothermic animals. The functionalist approach to emotions hold that emotions have evolved to ensure appropriate behavioral responses to dangerous or rewarding stimuli. Little information is however available on how evolutionary widespread these putative links between personality and the expression of emotional or affective states such as fear are. Here we disclose that individual variation in coping style predicts fear responses in Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus, using the principle of avoidance learning. Fish previously screened for coping style were given the possibility to escape a signalled aversive stimulus. Fearful individuals showed a range of typically reactive traits such as slow recovery of feed intake in a novel environment, neophobia, and high post-stress cortisol levels. Hence, emotional reactivity and appraisal would appear to be an essential component of animal personality in species distributed throughout the vertebrate subphylum. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T22:07:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f2f64eac07ad4ac8b16109a1f70eea12 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T22:07:42Z |
| publishDate | 2011-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-f2f64eac07ad4ac8b16109a1f70eea122022-12-21T18:48:40ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032011-01-01611e2808410.1371/journal.pone.0028084Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish.Catarina I M MartinsPatricia I M SilvaLuis E C ConceiçãoBenjamin CostasErik HöglundØyvind ØverliJohan W SchramaConsistent individual differences in cognitive appraisal and emotional reactivity, including fearfulness, are important personality traits in humans, non-human mammals, and birds. Comparative studies on teleost fishes support the existence of coping styles and behavioral syndromes also in poikilothermic animals. The functionalist approach to emotions hold that emotions have evolved to ensure appropriate behavioral responses to dangerous or rewarding stimuli. Little information is however available on how evolutionary widespread these putative links between personality and the expression of emotional or affective states such as fear are. Here we disclose that individual variation in coping style predicts fear responses in Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus, using the principle of avoidance learning. Fish previously screened for coping style were given the possibility to escape a signalled aversive stimulus. Fearful individuals showed a range of typically reactive traits such as slow recovery of feed intake in a novel environment, neophobia, and high post-stress cortisol levels. Hence, emotional reactivity and appraisal would appear to be an essential component of animal personality in species distributed throughout the vertebrate subphylum.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3227632?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Catarina I M Martins Patricia I M Silva Luis E C Conceição Benjamin Costas Erik Höglund Øyvind Øverli Johan W Schrama Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish. PLoS ONE |
| title | Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish. |
| title_full | Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish. |
| title_fullStr | Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish. |
| title_short | Linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish. |
| title_sort | linking fearfulness and coping styles in fish |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3227632?pdf=render |
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