Ontogenesis of sociability of wild immature capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus): Sex more than personality explains interindividual variation

Abstract

Sociability is a fundamental trait that social animals need to survive and reproduce in societies. Sociability predicts how an individual can consistently interact with its conspecifics across time and situations. By studying capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus), a neotropical primate with complex social behavior and high cognitive capacity, our research aims to analyze the development of the social axis of personality of immature individuals, from birth to the third year of life. We studied wild monkeys belonging to a group with infants, juveniles, and adults of both sexes that inhabits northeastern Brazil. We analyzed the behavior of 12 immature capuchins (6 males and 6 females) in 94 h of videos recorded weekly from birth until 36 months, through daily focal sampling. We verified whether there was intraindividual consistency throughout development by fitting regression models for the effect of age on initiating affiliative social behaviors, controlling for monkey identity and sex. Our results indicate that the individuals of this study exhibit high variation in the initiation of behaviors at the beginning of infancy; there was low repeatability and high intra‐individual variation during the first 3 years of life of these individuals, indicating that the social personality is not consolidated in this period. Immature females were more sociable than immature males. Therefore, differences in sociability in early life of bearded capuchin monkeys are best explained by sex rather than personality. We suggest that the high initial behavioral variation in the social axis of personality allows for plasticity influenced by the environment throughout development. The high sociability of females in infancy may be related to female philopatry and their high sociability in adulthood.