The EGA+GNM framework: an integrative approach to modelling behavioural syndromes

1. Behavioural syndromes refer to correlated suites of behavioural traits exhibiting consistent among-individual variation, i.e. personality. Factor analysis (FA) is currently the dominant method for modelling behavioural syndromes in humans and animals. Although FA is useful for inferring the latent causes underlying trait correlations, it does not account for pairwise behavioural interactions that also contribute to syndrome structure. Given that latent factors and pairwise interactions are likely ubiquitous causes of trait covariation, both should be modelled simultaneously. Currently, however, behavioural ecologists lack an integrative framework for describing and inferring such behavioural syndromes. 2. Generalized network modelling (GNM), representing an integration of FA and Gaussian graphical modelling (GGM), meets this challenge. We provide a theoretical introduction to GNM as well as a method for detecting latent factors in GGMs called exploratory graph analysis (EGA). We then...