It looks familiar to me, I think I stumbled onto it before when I was looking for a correlation between weight gain and Bipolar medication. This time I am reading the whole thing as it has a lot of very interesting studies and conclusions.
One interesting aspect is the Morality Gene. I will copy here most of this article but I strongly urge you to go to the very website and browse it.
I would assume I am a blue person
Chapter 1: Why are some people so affected by stress?YELLOW PEOPLE AND BLUE PEOPLE(reviewed, new link, 5/2006)
We're going to start with some graphs. Don't worry, the whole story is not going to be like this. But once you see what's on them, I think you'll agree that what they show is extremely important.
Here's a set of four results. The main point is the same in all of them. You'll learn in a minute that the different colors stand for a single factor which determines -- in part -- how badly someone's life may turn out, depending on how many stressful life events she goes through. Take a look. I'll tell you what the graphs mean, and then what that factor is, below.
As you can see, if a person has very few stressful life events (defined in a moment, below), they may still have symptoms of depression, but it's not very likely. If they have a lot of those events, then they are much more likely to have depression -- especially if they're a "blue person".
By comparison, the "yellow people" can have a lot of stressful things happen without increasing the likelihood of getting depressed. Look at the difference: if you're a yellow person, even 4 stressful events only raises your likelihood of full "major depression" to about 15% (lower left-hand graph). But if you're a blue person, those stressors raise your chances of depression to almost 50%!
What is the color factor? It's a gene. It's just DNA. It has nothing to do with anything you ever had any choice about. You were just born this way. The gene story gets a little complicated, but if you don't understand the explanation that follows, that won't matter too much. What I want you to see is just how much impact a gene can have on a person's experience of the world.
Think about it: if you're a yellow person, you could easily look at blue people and think "hey, pull yourself together, you wimps -- I've been through the same or worse, and I'm all right!" Then they could proceed to explain to the blue person just what they'd done to come through those stressors okay. "Here's how you do it, see? You just have to ...." They could attribute their success to God, or their own determination, or the great support from their friends. All those explanations could easily have some truth to them too. But look at how much impact the genes alone have: if you're a blue person from birth, your risk of depression when stressed is a lot higher.
Similarly, if you're a blue person, you could look at the yellow people and think "what's wrong with me? They've been through the same stuff and they seem to be doing okay." Then you could proceed to explain to yourself why you're struggling so much: "it's because I'm just weak. If I tried harder, I'd be better off." "Why don't I seem to be able to try harder?)"
You can imagine some of the variations on this: "I shouldn't have tried to go to college, I just don't have what it takes", or "It's because I drank so much alcohol all that time", etc. And even here, there might be some truth to those explanations. But what if a big part of the explanation, for why your mood is so affected by stress, comes down to your genes? Wouldn't it be ironic if meanwhile you were telling yourself it is "your fault"?
Of course some people will never EVER believe the results of these studies as fact, they will continue to believe that people who get stressed and depressed are just weak and worthless, but this is all a very interesting read nonetheless.
Well thanks for reading.
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