Browsing by Author "Hope, David"

The relationship between Fluctuating Asymmetry (FA) and personality can cast light on the fitness consequences and selective benefits underlying personality. However few studies have investigated the topic and these have rendered inconsistent findings. Theoretically predicted relationships of FA to personality include linear associations and curvilinear associations (with low FA leading to average—not extreme—personality trait levels). Evidence for no association would suggest that personality has no consequences for general fitness. We summarise the findings to date, adding two new studies, testing each of the hypothesised models with well-validated measures of FA, and personality traits. No consistent associations were found. Though it remains possible that low FA is weakly related to conscientiousness and openness to experience, the major personality domains seem unrelated to FA.

The association of socioeconomic status (SES) with a range of lifecourse outcomes is robust, but the causes of these associations are not well understood. Research on the developmental origins of health and disease has led to the hypothesis that early developmental disturbance might permanently affect the lifecourse, accounting for some of the burden of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease. Here we assessed developmental disturbance using bodily and facial symmetry and examined its association with socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood, and attained status at midlife. Symmetry was measured at ages 83 (facial symmetry) and 87 (bodily symmetry) in a sample of 292 individuals from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 (LBC1921). Structural equation models indicated that poorer SES during early development was significantly associated with lower facial symmetry (standardized path coefficient -.25, p=.03). By contrast, midlife SES was not significantly associated with symmetry. The relationship was stronger in men (-.44, p=.03) than in women (-.12, p=.37), and the effect sizes were significantly different in magnitude (p=.004). These findings suggest that SES in early life (but not later in life) is associated with developmental disturbances. Facial symmetry appears to provide an effective record of early perturbations, whereas bodily symmetry seems relatively imperturbable. As bodily and facial symmetries were sensitive to different influences, they should not be treated as interchangeable. However, markers of childhood disturbance remain many decades later, suggesting that early development may account in part for associations between SES and health through the lifecourse. Future research should clarify which elements of the environment cause these perturbations.