This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Martin, J. G. A., Pirotta, E., Petelle, M. B. and Blumstein, D. T. (2017), Genetic basis of between-individual and within-individual variance of docility. J. Evol. Biol., 30: 796–805., which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13048. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.