Chapter 10 came to some unexpected conclusions for me. Before reading, I would have assumed that the stress of a high end career would have posed more stress than holding a lower end job. However, the Terman participants perfectly proved the enhancement hypothesis, which says that having meaningful work that builds self-esteem makes the stress of the work worth it. I also found it interesting that the harmful, mortality increasing stress didn’t seem to come from the work at all, but from the interactions with coworkers. This is particularly interesting to me because of the way the different indicators of longevity interact with one another. In college, we are taught leadership and social skills that help deal with this sort of coworker stress and inconvenience. However, being in college at all is an indicator of higher SES, which is also an indicator of longevity.
I found the conclusions of Chapter 11 to be unconvincing. Reducing religion to a set of personality traits and a community could be applied to many different hobbies or interests. For example, one could reduce all people who play lacrosse to a set of similar traits and use the team setting as a sort of congregation. I think this use of religion compared to longevity is a stretch by the authors, and like in previous chapters, it tries too hard to be impartial and inoffensive to actually prove a point.
I was also intrigued to find that found it interesting that the harmful, mortality increasing stress didn’t seem to come from the work at all, but from the interactions with coworkers. I feel like this finding shows how much social interaction plays in longevity.
I disagree with what you have said about religion. I feel that people of different religions all have different personality traits and that they are more social than other people especially as they age.
I really liked the point about the coworkers/boss relationships because it showed that it’s really not about the job so much as it is about the stress. Relationships can be very stressful, especially if they’re a bad one. This is interesting information to keep in mind going forward–that it’s not just about the job stress but also the people who are working around you. I remember my mom had a job for many years that she loved doing, but she hated her partners and made her miserable.
I agree with your point about Chapter 11–I found that this was not just related to religion so much as a community and a way to be social. That being said, I think this chapter should have been titled something along the lines of “social communities”. When I saw the title of religion, I got excited because the question of how does religion effect your health is one that I’ve been curious of for a long time.