Collective Personality and Our Environment

We are all familiar with the concept of the personality of an individual. We are less familiar with group- or collective personalities (although most teachers can tell you at length about the personalities of each of their classes). The concept is the same: whereas an individual personality relates to an individual’s consistent behaviors across time and contexts, a collective personality relates to a group’s consistent behaviors across time and contexts. Collective personalities can be strongly influenced by the composition and size of the animal group, but also by the environment.


A social spider web by Harvey Barrison at Wikimedia Commons.

This week at Accumulating Glitches I talk about how the environment influences group personalities in social spiders. Check it out here.

And to learn more, check this out:

Modlmeier, A., Forrester, N., & Pruitt, J. (2014). Habitat structure helps guide the emergence of colony-level personality in social spiders Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 68 (12), 1965-1972 DOI: 10.1007/s00265-014-1802-z