14 DAY TRIAL // Physical activity as well as the energy generated by an individual could be linked to traits of their personality, suggests a new research carried out by the University of New South Wales.
Dr Peter Biro, a senior lecturer in the UNSW Evolution and Ecology Research Center and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, along with colleague Judy Stamps of the University of California, Davis, say in a review article in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, that people, as well as animals, exercise differently, and individuals from a same species can have different activities.
Behavior and exercise level depend on lifestyle, environment, metabolism and personality.
“Some of us are couch potatoes while others are drawn to sport and exercise,” says Dr Biro.
“We often associate the athletic 'jock' type of person with being aggressive and social, whereas the more sedentary 'nerd' often is seen as more socially awkward and submissive."
“These are generalizations, but most people would probably agree there is some truth to them.
“If so, why should individuals differ in their propensity for activity and in their personality, and why might they be related?”
The article says that there is now enough evidence to say that an individual's personality is linked to its metabolism – the process that turns food into energy.
Dr Biro says that captive animals are often behaving in a hyperactive way, when they have unlimited food available to them, like mice who spend hours on their running wheel or other animals that often pace back and forth in zoo enclosures.
“Given they don't need to move about in search of food as they would in nature, we might ask why they are apparently 'exercising'.
“Recent research suggests that this behavior might be related to an individual's capacity to generate energy - its 'metabolic capacity'.
“For example, mice in isolation that have high metabolism tend to spend more time on running wheels, and run faster, than those with low metabolism.”
The review also links metabolism to aggression, saying that in several species of birds or fish, there are individuals with a high metabolic rate, more aggressive and dominate towards those with a slower metabolism.
It seems that it is all a matter of the amount of energy needed for different activities, and the energetic capacity of an individual along with its metabolic rate are what determine its personality.
“It may just be that some individuals generate much more energy than others and when those individuals are captive with abundant food, they must outlet 'excess' energy that is normally expressed in nature in activities such as feeding and defense of food supplies,” Dr Biro adds.
“We are still some ways from a really solid understanding of the links between metabolism and personality in animals, but recent research suggests these ideas have merit and are worth studying further.”