Ch 2

Conscientiousness seems to be a key contributor to health and longevity. In the Terman Study it said that the prudent dependable child lived the longest. The chapter describes why this might be the case.  People who are more conscientious are more detail oriented and might tend to go to the doctor if they are not feeling well, and conscientious people are less likely to smoke or drink to excess or abuse drugs or drive too fast. These people do more things to protect their health and are less likely to engage in risky activities. Personality seems to play part a role in how conscientious or not conscientious they are. People are outgoing and social able to me seems the ones that have an impulsive behavior and want to do everything in the moment.  While all this might seem to make sense, it still seems to me that biological factors are still a major contributor.  A family friend was telling me how four people in her family got colon cancer and some died from that. Clearly being conscientious about getting a colonoscopy will help catch the disease early but the genetic factors are huge here.  From the chapter, it says people who are conscientiousness versus unconscientious have different levels of serotonin; people who have low levels of serotonin are more likely to be impulsive so this would indicate that people who have high levels of serotonin are more cautious of the actions.  Can this really determine one’s biological tendency to be healthy?  Also, interesting that conscientiousness leads one to create health relationships.

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