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Network position: a key component in the characterization of social personality types

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Abstract

In recent years, animal social interactions have received much attention in terms of personality research (e.g. aggressive or cooperative interactions). However, other components of social behaviour such as those describing the intensity, frequency, directedness and individual repeatability of interactions in animal groups have largely been neglected. Network analysis offers a valuable opportunity to characterize individual consistency of traits in labile social groups and therein provide novel insights to personality research in ways previously not possible using traditional techniques. Should individual network positions be consistently different between individuals under changing conditions, they might reflect expressions of an individual's personality. Here, we discuss a conceptual framework for using network analyses to infer the presence of individual differences and present a statistical test based on randomization techniques for testing the consistency of network positions in individuals. The statistical tools presented are useful because if particular individuals consistently occupy key positions in social networks, then this is also likely to have consequences for their fitness as well as for that of others in the population. These consequences may be particularly significant since individual network position has been shown to be important for the transmission of diseases, socially learnt information and genetic material between individuals and populations.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Max Wolf and Dick James for helpful discussions and suggestions for the manuscript. ADMW was supported by a postdoctoral research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. NJD was supported by the Max Planck Society. We would also like to thank Darren Croft and two anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of the Biology and Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, 12587, Berlin, Germany

    Alexander D. M. Wilson & Jens Krause

  2. Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Jens Krause

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Lübeck University of Applied Sciences, 23562, Lübeck, Germany

    Stefan Krause

  4. Behavioural Ecology, Department of Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Planegg-Martinsried, Munich, Germany

    Niels J. Dingemanse

  5. Evolutionary Ecology of Variation Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany

    Niels J. Dingemanse

Authors
  1. Alexander D. M. Wilson
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  2. Stefan Krause
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  3. Niels J. Dingemanse
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  4. Jens Krause
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander D. M. Wilson.

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Communicated by D. P. Croft

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Wilson, A.D.M., Krause, S., Dingemanse, N.J. et al. Network position: a key component in the characterization of social personality types. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 163–173 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1428-y

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