You obviously cannot generalize about black bears and they DO have personalities. Every situation is different. It has been my experience that bears that are hunted regularly want to stay away from humans, unless they are stressed by hunger. Bears who have a high success ratio of getting food from humans vs getting shot by humans do not necessarily fear humans. Hunting is not allowed in National Parks, so these bears have less reason to fear humans. Add to that all the tourists who want to feed bears and sloppy food care at campgrounds.

My various bear encounters:

1) Bear in camp - looking for food. Only once- a juvenile bear rolled around bear can then very curious - I swear he was bored and wanted to play!

2) Bears in close proximity to me on the trail-(many encounters) territorial - if startled they may attack, otherwise they just want to establish that they are in charge. Usually look angry for a while, then run off.

3) Bears off in the far distance (too many of these to count) - ignore me, or slowly amble off farther into the woods.

4) Moma bear protecting young - three of these- two ran cubs up the nearest tree and then got on hind legs and glared at me as I backed up and detoured, one I met on a trail where I could not get off the trail resulting in a half hour impasse; cub sent to the bushes, lots of conversation between me and Mama, I finally slowly passed.

5) Copulating bears - growled at me (not sure who was the most embarrased, them or me) but they were more interested in continuing their activities.

6) Bear kiss- sleeping next to my car out in the open and a wet bear nose in my face. After the bear left I got into the car and drove off a mile out if its way.

And I must say, that EVERY bear encounter is terrifying to me! Every bear encounter has a potential for a bad outcome. So far I have been lucky.