Question

what general costs and benefits might you associate with being bold or inhibited in animals

Answer 1

Answer :

Boldness and behavioral inhibition are in association with psychological, psychiatric and physiological aspects. Predator inspection behavior in fish system is a very well studied and is a model system to study costs or benefits of boldness and behavioral inhibition. There is a positive relationship between male boldness and simple associative learning task. Males that associate a cuse with food were bolder than those didn't. Natural selection will favour behavioral polymorphism of boldness.

Boldness is the propensity of an animal to engage in risky behavior. This behavior is important on both ecological and evolutionary time scales. Boldness and behavioral inhibition affect survival, reproduction and thus fitness.

So costs incurred in being bold is easy chances of predation but reproductive success will be more for such animal. Also it will be more successful in feed taking or predation. Where behavioral inhibition is more associated with social inhibition. Survival chances will be more in behavioral inhibition by decreasing chances of being predated. Also they will get back in predation and feeding. They will have lower reproductive success also. A study in rhesus monkey showed increased risk for anxiety and depression and a decrease in social behavior later in life for those who had behavioral inhibition.