Posted 9:39 AM by Blah blah

Creativity. Mate Choice. Personality. (Psychology)

Marriage and children kill creativity in men (ABC):

"Men do their best work in their younger years, but getting married and having children stalls their creativity, according to a New Zealand study of successful scientists....Kanazawa suggests 'a single psychological mechanism' is responsible for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women. That craving drives the all-important male hormone, testosterone. After a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output, Kanazawa theorises."

Mate choice: Opposites don't attract (ABC):

"When it comes to finding the right partner in life, the old adage that 'opposites attract' is wrong, according to a new U.S. study. In Western society at least, young adults prefer someone who is most like themselves...

The researchers cite other studies that have found men and women really do tend to choose marriage partners with many attributes similar to themselves, and that people who choose such a partner tend to be happier and enjoy more stable marriages."

Personality - a lifetime's work (ABC):

"Rather than being stuck with the same character we're born with, our personalities change throughout our lives – in some cases more as we get older – a U.S. study has revealed.

A team of psychologists led by Dr Sanjay Srivastava from the University of California, Berkeley, surveyed a huge sample of 132,515 volunteers on the major groupings of personality traits known as the 'Big Five': conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extroversion....

'Average levels of personality traits changed gradually but systematically throughout the lifespan, sometimes even more after age 30 than before,' the researchers wrote.

'We believe adult personality is characterised more by plasticity than by increasing calcification, and the mechanisms of personality change can be understood best by considering the life contexts that accompany change,' they concluded."