Natural leaders may have more children: study

	Tweet

Born leaders may be more likely to have children than people who prefer to be led, a study suggests.

Researchers found that among Finnish adults in a long- term health study, those who’d scored high on a “leadership” scale as teenagers were more likely than low scorers to have a child by the age of 39.

In contrast, several other aspects of the “type A” personality—aggressiveness, eagerness and a strong sense of responsibility—were unrelated to fertility. 

The findings suggest that something about leadership traits, specifically, affects a person’s likelihood of having children, the researchers report in the Journal of Personality.

It’s possible that leadership is expressed not only as a drive for achievement on the social level, but also on the family level, explained lead researcher Dr. Markus Jokela, of the University of Helsinki.

“That is, status-striving and fertility may share, to some extent at least, a common psychological background,” he told Reuters Health.

The link between higher social rank and reproductive success is seen in almost all non-human animals that have a social hierarchy, Jokela noted.

For people, the decision to have children is obviously complex. Still, Jokela said, “the leadership-fertility association suggests that this effect may still work in humans at the level of personality differences.”

The findings are based on 1,313 adults followed since 1980. Each underwent a standard personality assessment at some point between the ages of 12 and 21. Leadership was gauged by the extent to which participants agreed with statements like “I always take charge of things” and “I like to tell others what to do.”

In general, Jokela’s team found, the odds of having a child by age 39 increased in tandem with adolescent leadership scores. For each standard step above the average, the odds of having a child increased by 11 percent for men and 19 percent for women.

The link was not explained by higher education levels or higher marriage rates among leaders.

According to Jokela, the findings lend insight into the “psychology of childbearing”—a subject that has so far been little studied.

However, the leadership-fertility relationship might look different depending on the society, he pointed out. For example, in a society where women “have to make a big tradeoff” between career-building and family-building, strong leadership traits might be linked to lower fertility.

“Apparently,” Jokela said, “Finnish women with high leadership personality manage to do both.”

SOURCE: Journal of Personality, February 2009.

RELATED STORIES:
Bar-code system lowers medication errors: study   Medicare HMOs don’t show hoped-for savings   Smoking in pregnancy damages baby’s chromosomes   Poor work ability may predict faster deterioration of health   Gaddafi says will not release Bulgarian nurses   Free chlamydia testing in pharmacies - questions need addressing   Link Found Between Poor Epilepsy Control And Higher Healthcare Costs   Schiavo videotape misleading, experts say   Health official anticipates holdup in Canadian pharmacy licensing   10 Ways to Be Happy and Healthy in 2010   6,000 flu shots offered to most vulnerable North Coast residents   15 Loyola Doctors Named to Chicago Magazine’s ‘Top Doctors for Women’ List

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]