شخصیت و مورفولوژی صورت: پیوندهای مربوط به جرات ورزی و روان رنجوری

Personality has important links to health, social status, and life history outcomes (e.g. longevity and reproductive success). Human facial morphology appears to signal aspects of one’s personality to others, raising questions about the evolutionary origins of such associations (e.g. signals of mate quality). Studies in non-human primates may help to achieve this goal: for instance, facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) in the male face has been associated with dominance not only in humans but also in capuchin monkeys. Here we test the association of personality (assertiveness, openness, attentiveness, neuroticism, and sociability) with fWHR, face width/lower-face height, and lower face/face height ratio in 64 capuchins (Sapajus apella). In a structural model of personality and facial metrics, fWHR was associated with assertiveness, while lower face/face height ratio was associated with neuroticism (erratic vs. stable behaviour) and attentiveness (helpfulness vs. distractibility). Facial morphology thus appears to associate with three personality domains, which may act as a signal of status in capuchins.

Human personality is associated with differences in important behaviours, ranging from work (Ferguson, Heckman, & Corr, 2011) to well-being (Weiss, Bates, & Luciano, 2008). Research into the biological and evolutionary origins of personality may be of value in understanding these associations. One approach is the examination of links between individual differences in facial structure and behaviour (Plavcan, 2012, Plavcan et al., 1995 and Weston et al., 2004), including personality (e.g. Kramer and Ward, 2010 and Penton-Voak et al., 2006). For instance, facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR: the ratio of the bizygomatic-width to upper face height: see Fig. 1) shows links to dominance–like traits (Carré & McCormick, 2008) though not all studies have found these to be significant (Deaner et al., 2012 and Özener, 2012). fWHR has also been associated with achievement striving (Lewis, Lefevre, & Bates, 2012), and with deception and untrustworthiness (Haselhuhn and Wong, 2012 and Stirrat and Perrett, 2010).