Natural Selection Favours the Conscientious
23 10 08 - 05:46 Natural selection is still a force that can affect humans, despite its being limited severely by medicine and social policies that protect those who Nature would be intolerant towards. If there is a human trait that is considerably more likely to result in death or limited offspring, then this trait makes a person less likely to be one of the "fittest" who will survive (as a type rather than as an individual).There are various selective pressures in modern life, but I would like to focus on one that has recently been highlighted in the New Scientist.
EXECUTIVES who build successful companies, Olympic athletes and even some US presidents are all likely to live longer than the average Joe - because they are more conscientious.
The life-prolonging benefits of a scrupulous life have come to light from a comparison of 20 previous studies which together rated 8900 people for conscientiousness using a standard psychological survey, and also recorded the age they died.
Howard Friedman and Margaret Kern at the University of California at Riverside found that people who were less conscientious were 50 per cent more likely to die at any given age, on average, than those of the same age who scored highly (Health Psychology, DOI: 10.1037/0278-6133.27.5.505). This exceeds the effects of socioeconomic status and intelligence, which are also known to increase longevity.
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Wow! If "conscientiousness" makes people as much as 50% less likely to die then it must be a trait that should spread through the population like wildfire - provided of course that the conscientious breed sufficiently. It could only work if they are having babies, and on the assumption that this is a genetic trait and not an environmental one. It does seem likely that upbringing can instill a level of conscientiousness into a child, but anyone with any grasp of genetic effects on psychology can be in little doubt that the tendency towards conscientiousness is inherited - just as whether someone is natually introverted or extroverted. A person can alter themselves, with a conscious will or by taking drugs, in these respects if they are determined to, but their basic default personality is largely predetermined.
Because conscientiousness has never been less in fashion than in the modern era, where morality is in no way as strictly enforced as in the past, and the "mad, bad and dangerous to know" personalities are hyped and glamourised, those who behave conscientiously are more likely to be doing so because it feels right to themselves as an individual.
What do the scientists mean when they say "conscientious" though? Here things are a little vague, but you can certainly catch the drift. It turns out that the observation in the New Scientist has already been made several years ago.
The most conscientious children were "the kids you can depend on to do their homework, lock the doors, put their bikes away," Dr. Friedman said. Although they grew up to be adults who smoked and drank less than their peers, the statistical link between conscientiousness and longevity held beyond such healthy habits.
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Someone who consistently works on a project such as Corrupt.org and can be relied upon not to flake would a good example!
The NYT article also makes the point that optimism and a sense of humour are far from being conducive to a long life.
Those who were conscientious as children were 30 percent less likely to die in any given year of adulthood than their most freewheeling peers. But those who were ebullient in childhood fared less well in life's roulette wheel; they were about 6 percent more likely to die in any given year than the least cheerful children.
"We don't really know why conscientious people live longer -- it's not as simple as wearing your sweater when it's cold outside," said Dr. Howard S. Friedman, a psychologist at the University of California at Riverside who did the research. "And despite assertions that optimism and a sense of humor are healthy, we found no evidence for this claim. Cheerfulness predicted a shorter life, perhaps because it indicated an unrealistic optimism, which led people to ignore risks to their health."
Excuse the indulgence, but I am reminded of an entirely satirical column I wrote earlier this year "Why Idiots are Happiest"
As far as admitting to satisfaction with their lot in life, many intelligent people are also happy - but when it comes down to achieving a level of utter lack of concern, and carefree abandon, the stupider the better. By this measure, the odds of being "happy" increased 5% for every 5 point drop in IQ.
Around the world, low IQ is observed where people most spontaneously start behaving in a mob, singing and dancing or accusing others of being under demonic possession or so on - an occasion for some excitement and drama. They are marked by a lack of inhibition. This is also found in homes for the mentally retarded. Such places contain some of the most joyful people imaginable.
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It's not the being happy itself that leads to an earlier death, but rather more likely to be that the carefree people are also very careless.
Few people feel smug in these turbulent times — apart from those who predicted turbulent times. Negative thinking doesn’t usually get much positive press, but recently, several new books have appeared that suggest misery might be a good thing after all. While American bankers took mortgages worth ten times their salaries, their British equivalents stayed put in Putney. Even if they did share in the windfall, they never thought it would last.
Pessimism is not generally a mindset that people want to buy books and take courses to learn more about. For years we’ve been told we need to be positive to make a success of our life and that it’s only by eradicating all negativity that we can ever hope to be truly happy. So to answer the question, ‘How are you?’, with anything other than ‘Fine’ was to let yourself and your country down.
But the more psychologists look at optimism under a microscope, the less cheery it appears. ‘I would argue that it is a disadvantage to be an optimist in today’s current financial markets,’ says Bryan Gibson, a social psychologist at Central Michigan University, who has been exploring the ‘brighter side’ of pessimism. When an optimist receives continual bad news he responds with increased effort. A pessimist, on the other hand, calls it quits. Though optimism is more effective for fighting off colds, it’s not a good recipe for gambling or banking, says Gibson.
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In many ways life is like walking a tightrope. You have to stay focused on where you tread while moving fowards to your goals. The conscientious have the best chance of making it through. However, we should still stay high in spirits and not become dour, boring and negative pessimists in order to achieve a conscientious approach to life. Instead stay optimistic that making meaning in your life and living by your own strong ethics will make a better future. Nature will smile on you!
To stay cheerful when involved in a gloomy and exceedingly responsible business is no inconsiderable art: yet what could be more necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing succeeds in which high spirits play no part.
F Nietzsche "Twilight of the Idols".
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