Neurotic women and outgoing men have more children. Who knew?
At least, those are the findings of a new study in which researchers from the University of Sheffield studied parents in four villages in Senegal.
They found that women who displayed "neurotic" personalities -- meaning they were more anxious, moody and depressed -- had 12 percent more children. That relationship was even more pronounced if the women were also in a higher class, the researchers found.
Extroverted men -- those who displayed sociable and outgoing personalities -- had 14 percent more children than men with below average extraversion.
The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team used the "Big Five" personality traits to assess both parents. The Big Five are recognized by many psychologists to be the fundamental characteristics all humans share.
"Our results show that personality predicts family size differently in men and women, and those men with largest families have personality aspects different from the women with the largest families," Virpi Lummaa, a co-author from University of Sheffield's Department of Animal and Plant Science, said in a press release.
The study also found evidence of a link between maternal personality traits and their children's physical condition. Women with higher neuroticism levels were more likely to have children with decreased body mass, reflecting malnutrition.
"Gaining understanding of such individual-level determinants of reproductive decisions helps in the current debate on the role of individual versus social factors in explaining recent fertility changes around the world," Lummaa said.
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Tags: Current Events, Emotions, Fertility, Gender, Health
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