Despite the emergence of rival theories about how best to train people. Psychological ‘behavioural’ theories are not yet redundant. Scientists writing in ‘The Annals of Epidemiology’, for example, have linked personality to an increased risk of contracting serious illness in later life.
The study looked at a sample of 2000 men over a 30 year period until 60 per cent had died. The deceased death certificates were matched to a psychological questionnaire they had filled out years before.
Amazingly the shyest respondents had a 50 per cent greater chance of dying from a heart attack or stroke. The authors hypothesized that personality may actually alter the efficient operation of our brains and create the conditions for illness to develop.
Really like this study, I was just wondering what else was focused on in the study? Again I'm intrigued by another one of your posts.
ReplyDeleteThanks Avril for your post. I think the researchers focused exclusively on 'personality and illness' dividing their respondents into introverts and extroverts which is a pretty hard
ReplyDeletething to do given that so few of us are just one or the other.