The Evolution of Personality
The Evolution of Personality
This chapter examines the evolution of personality in two species that live in very different habitats and have very different brain architectures: elephants and dolphins. Complex societies and communication, innovation, tool use, play, and individual recognition are a constellation of qualities that has been emerging in a variety of lineages, including Homo sapiens. They are a suite of traits found in large-brained, slowly developing animals that use behavioral versatility and insight learning to survive in their niches. They are an extension of the K-selected, equilibrium strategies that life has used since earliest times as one way of remaining adapted to an ever-changing environment. Life has increased in information content over time, and a summit of this process is a personality with wide behavioral versatility. This chapter first describes brain size in dolphins and elephants and proceeds by discussing their complex social relationships, tool use, communication, self-recognition in front of a mirror, and behavioral variation.
Keywords: personality, brain, elephants, dolphins, behavioral versatility, brain size, social relationships, tool use, communication, self-recognition
Columbia Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .