Every individual is different and with that have different interests. Stereotypes suggest that women tend to be more interested in the arts, music, movies, or plays as their favorite past times, which was the interests of one of the Terman participants, James. He scored higher on the scale for being feminine. For one of the Terman women, Donna; she tended to have interests in watching sports and collecting arrowheads which tend to be more of men interests. How much of feminine interest and behaviors is innate vs social/environmental? When these Terman subjects were being studied, there was a lot of social pressure for a woman to be a homemaker and be interested in being a teacher or nurse (those were seen as the opportunities for women).
It is interesting to learn that men are likely to have five to seven years’ shorter lives than women. I thought it was interesting that this chapter stated, if men and women tended to be more masculine, they had an increased mortality rate and that for men and women who were more feminine, they tended to be better off in life. Why would this be true: that feminine men and women tend to have longevity?
Once again, we see that social relationships seem to be an important key to longevity. In terms of relating this to having a feminine personality versus masculine, how much of this difference is environmental and due to social pressures compared to innate personality. In different cultures, the amount that people socialize and share emotions is different. Does longevity in these cultures reflect the same trends?
There were several points in these two chapters that were not surprising:
- Stress itself is not necessarily bad but chronic stress is.
- Not surprising that men who faced the most hostile conditions in the war would be most affected. And that the worse the conditions, the most at risk for future problems such as drinking, smoking, over-eating, sleep disturbances, moodiness, and depression. And not surprising that if they showed tendencies to making unhealthy decisions before they experienced trauma in war, the more at risk they were for future problems.
- When treating depression, it is not enough to treat the symptoms. A broader view must be taken and the individual needs to “slowly be integrated back into a supportive environment community a stable career and I carry family or group of close friends.” “What is special about the life long term and study is that reveals how one risk can lead to another and how patterns produce cumulative results”. (pg 198)
The point in these chapters that was the most surprising:
- The more conscientious subjects were less likely to be sent to the Pacific theater. The idea that personality could affect where one was sent is very surprising. I wonder how real a correlation this was and if there really was some cause and effect in play.