London, Jan 28 (IANS) Couples with similar personalities make much better parents than those with different dispositions — at least in the world of zebra finches.
Researchers from University of Exeter, Britain, found birds with stronger personality traits doing a much better job of raising their young ones if they had a like-minded partner.
Where couples had different personalities, chicks didn’t fare as well – being less well-fed and in poorer condition, the journal Animal Behaviour reports.
The study authors presume that matched personalities are better in parenting, which could be down to improved cooperation and coordination of effort, according to an Exeter statement.
Sasha Dall, study author and part of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation, said: ‘The personality differences we focused on with these birds reflected how they go about their daily lives.’
‘In the case of zebra finches, to be good parents you need to be able to coordinate your behaviour so that while one parent is searching for food, the other is feeding the chick,’ she said.
‘It’s a lot easier to co-ordinate your behaviour if you’re similar in the way you go about things,’ Dall concluded.
For the study, they focused on the ‘personalities’ of a group of zebra finches.
They were able to establish that some showed consistent patterns of behaviour, normally either reflected in different levels of aggressiveness or willingness to explore.
Then couples were artificially paired together – with a selection of couples who were like-minded and some who had no common traits.
