Curious Kids: what are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?
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“What are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?” – Emma, age 10, from Shanghai
Hello Emma, and thank you for this very interesting question!
Let’s start by exploring what we mean by personality. Have you noticed no two people are completely alike? We all see, experience, and understand the world in different ways.
For example, some people love spending time with friends and being the centre of attention, whereas other people are more shy and enjoy having time to themselves.
Your unique personality is shaped by your genes as well as various influences in your environment. And your personality plays an important role in how you interact with the world.
The big five
Did you know there are scientists who spend time researching personality? Their research is concerned with describing the ways people differ from each other, and understanding how these differences could be important for other parts of life such as our health and how well we do in school or at work.
There are many different perspectives on personality. A widely accepted viewpoint based on a lot of research is called the five factor model or the “big five”. According to this theory, a great deal of a person’s personality can be summarised in terms of where they sit on five dimensions, called traits:
- the introversion-extraversion trait refers to how much someone is outgoing and social (extroverted) or prefers being with smaller groups of friends or focusing on their own thoughts (introverted)
- agreeableness captures how much someone tends to be cooperative and helps others
- openness to experience refers to how much a person is creative and enjoys experiencing new things
- neuroticism describes a person’s tendency to experience negative feelings, like worrying about things that could go wrong
- conscientiousness encompasses how much a person is organised, responsible, and dedicated to things that are important to them, like schoolwork or training for a sports team.
A person can have high, low, or moderate levels of each of these traits. And understanding whether someone has higher or lower levels of the big five can tell us a lot about how we might expect them to behave in different situations.
So what shapes our personalities?
A number of factors shape our personalities, including our genes and social environment.
Our bodies are made up of many very small structures called cells. Within these cells are genes. We inherit genes from our parents, and they carry the information needed to make our bodies and personalities. So, your personality may be a bit like your parents’ personalities. For example, if you’re an outgoing sort of person who loves to meet new people, perhaps one or both of your parents are very social too.
KieferPix/Shutterstock
Personalities are also affected by our environment, such as our experiences and our relationships with family and friends. For example, some research has shown our relationships with our parents can influence our personality. If we have loving and warm relationships, we may be more agreeable and open. But if our relationships are hurtful or stressful, this may increase our neuroticism.
Another study showed that, over time, young children who were more physically active were less introverted (less shy) and less likely to get very upset when things don’t go their way, compared to children who were less physically active. Although we don’t know why this is for sure, one possible explanation is that playing sport leads to reduced shyness because it introduces children to different people.
While we’re learning more about personality development all the time, research in this area presents quite a few challenges. Many different biological, cultural and environmental influences shape our development, and these factors can interact with each other in complex ways.
Is our personality fixed once we become adults?
Although we develop most of our personality when we are young, and people’s personalities tend to become more stable as they get older, it is possible for aspects of a person’s personality to change, even when they are fully grown.
A good example of this can be seen among people who seek treatment for conditions like anxiety or depression. People who respond well to working with a psychologist can show decreases in neuroticism, indicating they become less likely to worry a lot or feel strong negative feelings when something stressful happens.
Hello, Curious Kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to mailto:[email protected]
Tim Windsor, Professor, Director, Generations Research Initiative, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University and Natalie Goulter, Lecturer, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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If Your Knee Feels Unstable, Do These 3 Things Before It Gets Worse
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Dr. Alyssa Kuhn, arthritis specialist, shows us how:
Strength, support, & control
Knee stability depends on three components working together:
- strength (your muscles being strong enough to do hold you up)
- support (weight-bearing confidence)
- control (balance and movement coordination)
Weakness in any one area can make your knee feel as though it may give out—or indeed, it may actually give out!
So, to ensure you have those three things:
- Chair stand: sit at the edge of a chair, stand up tall, then sit down with control, progressing by lowering yourself slowly over a three-second count (without* using your hands!)
- *If you need to use your hands at first in order to have good form, then so be it; do prioritize good form. However, if you must use your hands, use as light a touch as possible, and try to work up to not using your hands (including: not using swinging momentum, either)
- Stand-and-march: stand up from a chair, march one knee up, march with the other leg while balancing on one leg at a time, then sit back down with control.
- Weight-shift stepping: place most of your weight through the leg you’re training while lightly stepping the other leg forwards, sideways, and backwards, returning to the middle after each step. You can progress this one by passing a small weight around you in a circle. How small a weight? It should be very manageable to you, just enough that the balance is the hard part, not holding the weight up.
- Balance-beam stance with arm swings: stand with one foot directly in front of the other, shift most of your weight onto the back leg, then add controlled arm swings while maintaining your balance. Again you can progress this by adding weight to your hands.
Throughout, the main idea is to build strength, support, and control separately first, then progress to the combined exercises once the individual movements feel comfortable and controlled.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Best Exercise to Stop Your Legs From Giving Out ← a different approach, with a single exercise, and this one has to do with correcting the golgi tendon reflex that can sometimes cause knees to just collapse for no obvious reason
Take care!
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The Surprising Food Compound That Fixes Leaky Gut
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First, what is leaky gut?
It’s when the barrier between the gut and the rest of the body gets punctured, and things that should definitely stay in the gut escape into the rest of the body.
You may be wondering: how does the gut get punctured and is this only a risk if someone’s stabbing or shooting us?
And the answer is: most often, the gut gets punctured from the inside, either by fungus (usually C. albicans) putting its roots through the intestinal walls, or by other adverse microbiome changes that result in a reduction in mucus and other components of gut’s selective barrier layer that usually allows nutrients to pass through while keeping unpleasantries contained.
You can read more about that, here: Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
And more specifically, for the implications and extra considerations pertaining to this, you might want to check out:
- The Alzheimer’s Gut-Brain Connection—Caught On X-Ray!
- Spicy Foods & Your Gut ← it’s probably not what you might expect!
- Minimize The Harm Of Antibiotics
So, what’s this about a nutrient, or indeed an antinutrient, that can fix it?
Mighty phytic acid to the rescue!
We’ve written before about phytic acid, usually in the context of it being an antinutrient, that is to say, it reduces the absorption of some nutrients, especially certain minerals.
See for example its mentions in the following articles of ours:
- Brown Rice Protein: Strengths & Weaknesses
- Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
- Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc
…in which cases, usually we’re talking about soaking, cooking, and so forth to reduce the phytic acid content and resultant phytates.
A quick note before we continue: in nutrition science, phytic acid and phytates are closely related and in some contexts can even be interchangeable (them both being considered functionally the same antinutrient), but just to clarify…
- Phytic acid: the molecule itself, also known to its friends as inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6), which plants use to store phosphorus, especially in seeds, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
- Phytates: the salts formed when phytic acid binds to minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, or potassium. In foods and in the digestive tract, phytic acid mostly exists in these mineral-bound forms.
So for example:
- Phytic acid + calcium → calcium phytate
- Phytic acid + zinc → zinc phytate
- Phytic acid + iron → iron phytate
…and lo and behold, those are the minerals it stopped you from absorbing in those cases!
Now, researchers (Dr. Sujan Chatterjee et al.) have discovered that phytic acid also helps maintain the integrity of the intestinal barrier; when this pathway was disrupted in experimental models, the gut barrier became more permeable, and phytic acid supplementation restored much of the lost function.
Why/how this happens: Dr. Chatterjee and her teem found that phytic acid activates HDAC3, a protein that regulates genes involved in maintaining the gut lining; when HDAC3 activity falls, genes that can damage the intestinal barrier become more active, increasing intestinal permeability and inflammation.
So, in other words, a necessary part of a system was taken out, so the system stopped working properly!
This study also suggests that sometimes it’s one of the enzymes that’s lacking, and that restoring for example HDAC3 activity, if that be lacking, can help protect or repair the intestinal barrier.
You can read this paper in full, here: Phytic acid (InsP6) activates HDAC3 epigenetic axis to maintain intestinal barrier function
And you can read about what foods have often-high phytic acid contents when unprocessed (it’s a lot of edible grains, legumes, and nuts), here: Phytic Acid and Whole Grains for Health Controversy
…which may also explain why almonds improve gut barrier health, as we discussed here: What 47 Almonds Can Do For your Gut, Heart, Skin, & more
Want to learn more?
Do consider this very good book that we reviewed:
Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain – by Dr. Partha Nandi
Enjoy!
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How do I handle it if my parent is refusing aged care? 4 things to consider
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It’s a shock when we realise our parents aren’t managing well at home.
Perhaps the house and garden are looking more chaotic, and Mum or Dad are relying more on snacks than nutritious meals. Maybe their grooming or hygiene has declined markedly, they are socially isolated or not doing the things they used to enjoy. They may be losing weight, have had a fall, aren’t managing their medications correctly, and are at risk of getting scammed.
You’re worried and you want them to be safe and healthy. You’ve tried to talk to them about aged care but been met with swift refusal and an indignant declaration “I don’t need help – everything is fine!” Now what?
Here are four things to consider.
1. Start with more help at home
Getting help and support at home can help keep Mum or Dad well and comfortable without them needing to move.
Consider drawing up a roster of family and friends visiting to help with shopping, cleaning and outings. You can also use home aged care services – or a combination of both.
Government subsidised home care services provide from one to 13 hours of care a week. You can get more help if you are a veteran or are able to pay privately. You can take advantage of things like rehabilitation, fall risk-reduction programs, personal alarms, stove automatic switch-offs and other technology aimed at increasing safety.
Call My Aged Care to discuss your options.
Is Mum or Dad OK at home?
Nadino/Shutterstock2. Be prepared for multiple conversations
Getting Mum or Dad to accept paid help can be tricky. Many families often have multiple conversations around aged care before a decision is made.
Ideally, the older person feels supported rather than attacked during these conversations.
Some families have a meeting, so everyone is coming together to help. In other families, certain family members or friends might be better placed to have these conversations – perhaps the daughter with the health background, or the auntie or GP who Mum trusts more to provide good advice.
Mum or Dad’s main emotional support person should try to maintain their relationship. It’s OK to get someone else (like the GP, the hospital or an adult child) to play “bad cop”, while a different person (such as the older person’s spouse, or a different adult child) plays “good cop”.
3. Understand the options when help at home isn’t enough
If you have maximised home support and it’s not enough, or if the hospital won’t discharge Mum or Dad without extensive supports, then you may be considering a nursing home (also known as residential aged care in Australia).
Every person has a legal right to choose where we live (unless they have lost capacity to make that decision).
This means families can’t put Mum or Dad into residential aged care against their will. Every person also has the right to choose to take risks. People can choose to continue to live at home, even if it means they might not get help immediately if they fall, or eat poorly. We should respect Mum or Dad’s decisions, even if we disagree with them. Researchers call this “dignity of risk”.
It’s important to understand Mum or Dad’s point of view. Listen to them. Try to figure out what they are feeling, and what they are worried might happen (which might not be rational).
Try to understand what’s really important to their quality of life. Is it the dog, having privacy in their safe space, seeing grandchildren and friends, or something else?
Older people are often understandably concerned about losing independence, losing control, and having strangers in their personal space.
Sometimes families prioritise physical health over psychological wellbeing. But we need to consider both when considering nursing home admission.
Research suggests going into a nursing home temporarily increases loneliness, risk of depression and anxiety, and sense of losing control.
Mum and Dad should be involved in the decision-making process about where they live, and when they might move.
Some families start looking “just in case” as it often takes some time to find the right nursing home and there can be a wait.
After you have your top two or three choices, take Mum or Dad to visit them. If this is not possible, take pictures of the rooms, the public areas in the nursing home, the menu and the activities schedule.
We should give Mum or Dad information about their options and risks so they can make informed (and hopefully better) decisions.
For instance, if they visit a nursing home and the manager says they can go on outings whenever they want, this might dispel a belief they are “locked up”.
Having one or two weeks “respite” in a home may let them try it out before making the big decision about staying permanently. And if they find the place unacceptable, they can try another nursing home instead.
You might need to have multiple conversations about aged care.
CGN089/Shutterstock4. Understand the options if a parent has lost capacity to make decisions
If Mum or Dad have lost capacity to choose where they live, family may be able to make that decision in their best interests.
If it’s not clear whether a person has capacity to make a particular decision, a medical practitioner can assess for that capacity.
Mum or Dad may have appointed an enduring guardian to make decisions about their health and lifestyle decisions when they are not able to.
An enduring guardian can make the decision that the person should live in residential aged care, if the person no longer has the capacity to make that decision themselves.
If Mum or Dad didn’t appoint an enduring guardian, and have lost capacity, then a court or tribunal can appoint that person a private guardian (usually a family member, close friend or unpaid carer).
If no such person is available to act as private guardian, a public official may be appointed as public guardian.
Deal with your own feelings
Families often feel guilt and grief during the decision-making and transition process.
Families need to act in the best interest of Mum or Dad, but also balance other caring responsibilities, financial priorities and their own wellbeing.
Lee-Fay Low, Professor in Ageing and Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Artichoke vs Cabbage – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing artichoke to cabbage, we picked the artichoke.
Why?
In terms of macros, artichoke has more than 2x the protein; it also has nearly 2x the carbs, but to more than counterbalance that, it has more than 2x the fiber. An easy win for artichoke in the macros category.
In the category of vitamins, both are very respectable; artichoke has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline, while cabbage has more of vitamins A, C, and K. Superficially, that’s a 7:3 win for artichoke, but the margins of difference for artichoke’s vitamins are very small (meaning cabbage is hot on its heels for those vitamins), whereas cabbage’s A, C, and K are with big margins of difference (3–7x more), and arguably those vitamins are higher priority in the sense that B-vitamins of various kinds are found in most foods, whereas A, C, and K aren’t, and while E isn’t either, artichoke had a tiny margin of difference for that. All in all, we’re calling this category a tie, as an equally fair argument could be made for either vegetable here.
Looking at minerals, there’s a much clearer winner: artichoke has a lot more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while cabbage has a tiny bit more selenium. The two vegetables are equal on calcium.
In other considerations, artichoke is higher in polyphenols, though cabbage is a worthy source too.
Adding up the sections makes a clear overall win for artichoke, but by all means enjoy either or both, as diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Take care!
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Getting Rid Of Warts
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝How to get rid of warts and stop them from coming back?❞
First we’ll mention: it does matter what kind of warts they are, and where they are. It’s easier to treat a wart on a finger than on the genitals or an eyelid, for example.
To speak in broad terms, though, warts are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV).
There is a HPV vaccine; you can read about it here: Everything you need to know about cervical cancer*
You can get the vaccine as an adult, but it’s most readily given to children, as it is most effective before first encountering HPV. Otherwise, most people contract the virus at some point, and it is highly contagious, so prevention as early as possible is good. Sometimes people will hand-wring about giving a HPV vaccine to children as HPV is mostly transmitted sexually so it “shouldn’t” be necessary yet, but 1) better to get it done and not have to worry about it later 2) it’s not only transmitted sexually, but by touch in general, and it is highly resistant to disinfectants.
*You may be wondering: why is the link about cervical cancer? And the answer is that almost all cervical cancer is caused by HPV.
However, if you have warts, this does not mean you are necessarily at high risk of cervical cancer (or oropharyngeal cancer, which is also mostly caused by HPV).
There are hundreds of known types of HPV, and the most common wart-inducing types aren’t known to increase cancer risk. Please note that this is not an exhaustive statement though; there are a lot of types where it’s not fully known what they do. Also, many people will have numerous types of HPV.
You asked us about treating warts, so that’s important knowledge, but to save space on discussing the many types of HPV (which is a fascinating topic, especially when it comes to some of the most common types like 2 and 16, and the most risky types like 16 and 18), we’ll direct you to a convenient table of HPV types on Wikipedia that tells which kinds do what.
So, can we destroy the virus once infected?
Yes!
…ish. That is to say, we can destroy them locally (at the site of the wart), but we will still remain infected by the virus, meaning they can always reappear (we can reduce the risks though; more on that later).
Destroying it mostly comes in two main forms:
- Salicylic acid or similar chemical products: needs to be used every day, for weeks, but will destroy the wart tissue (and the virus contained within it) while leaving healthy tissue mostly unaffected (it’s only mildly corrosive to our own flesh) but still, try to get it only on the wart. Here’s an example product on Amazon.
- Liquid nitrogen or other freezing treatments: usually only takes a few treatments to destroy it completely. Liquid nitrogen is usually available only via a doctor, unless for some reason you happen to have access to it yourself, but we recommend getting professional (medical professional!) assistance, as otherwise it can very easily destroy your flesh too. Milder, at-home freezing treatments are not as effective as liquid nitrogen, but still much more effective than corrosive chemical treatments. The at-home kits usually involve a canister containing chemicals that produce an endothermic reaction when mixed, and this mixture is then either sprayed via a nozzle placed around the wart (to avoid getting other tissue), or else isn’t sprayed anywhere, and just cools a conductive metal element the tip of which is then placed on the wart to freeze it off. Here’s an example product on Amazon.
There are a lot of home remedies that people try; most of them do not work.
Here’s a list: 16 Natural Home Remedies for Warts ← we’re not recommending these, but we link them for your interest.
About avoiding reoccurrence
There are two main things here:
- don’t reinfect yourself: so for example try to avoid touching it (spreads it about anywhere else you touch), and consider anything you used on it physically (e.g. pumice stone, nail file, etc) contaminated and now capable of spreading it to other parts of you (or indeed other people, if it’s a shared item, so don’t share it). Remember, it’s very resistant to disinfecting, so unless you have a medical grade autoclave or seriously strong industrial chemicals, you’re very unlikely to successfully disinfect such items at home.
- look after your immune system: most warts go away by themselves in about 18 months. Is it because they just got fed up of being a nuisance? No, it’s because your immune system finally beat them (on that particular battleground, at least). So, look after your immune system, and it will not only help you get rid of extant warts more quickly, but also reduce the risk of reoccurrence.
Learn more about that latter: Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!
Take care!
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Dietary Changes for Artery Health
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝How does your diet change clean out your arteries of the bad cholesterol?❞
There’s good news and bad news here, and they can both be delivered with a one-word reply:
Slowly.
Or rather: what’s being cleaned out is mostly not the LDL (bad) cholesterol, but rather, the result of that.
When our diet is bad for cardiovascular health, our arteries get fatty deposits on their walls. Cholesterol gets stuck here too, but that’s not the main physical problem.
Our body’s natural defenses come into action and try to clean it up, but they (for example macrophages, a kind of white blood cell that consumes invaders and then dies, before being recycled by the next part of the system) often get stuck and become part of the buildup (called atheroma), which can lead to atherosclerosis and (if calcium levels are high) hardening of the arteries, which is the worst end of this.
This can then require medical attention, precisely because the body can’t remove it very well—especially if you are still maintaining a heart-unhealthy diet, thus continuing to add to the mess.
However, if it is not too bad yet, yes, a dietary change alone will reverse this process. Without new material being added to the arterial walls, the body’s continual process of rejuvenation will eventually fix it, given time (free from things making it worse) and resources.
In fact, your arteries can be one of the quickest places for your body to make something better or worse, because the blood is the means by which the body moves most things (good or bad) around the body.
All the more reason to take extra care of it, since everything else depends on it!
You might also like our previous main feature:
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