Nurturing our children with love and affection in their early years may have a lasting impact on their personality traits and life outcomes. Research has shown that positive maternal parenting can foster important qualities like openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.

According to Jasmin Wertz, PhD, lead author of the study, “Personality traits are strong predictors of important life outcomes, from academic and career success to health and well-being.” The findings suggest that fostering a positive parenting environment in early childhood can have a small but significant impact on the development of these crucial personality traits.

The research examined data from 2,232 British identical twins who were followed from birth through age 18. Researchers found that twins whose mothers expressed more warmth toward them in childhood were rated as more open, conscientious, and agreeable as young adults.

The results offer evidence that positive, affectionate mothering can affect key personality traits linked to success later in life. Even modest changes in personality could lead to significant population-wide benefits over time, particularly in promoting conscientiousness, which is strongly associated with success in education, work, and health.

However, researchers also found no lasting associations between maternal affection and extraversion or neuroticism. This suggests that other environmental or genetic factors may be more influential for these traits in adulthood.

The findings underscore the importance of considering both genetic and environmental factors when designing programs aimed at promoting positive personality traits. Wertz believes the research provides valuable evidence for the potential of parenting programs to influence critical aspects of personality development.

The study also highlights the need for a nuanced understanding of how different factors, including genetics, parenting, and life experiences, interact to shape who we are. As Wertz notes, “This research provides important practical considerations for policymakers and practitioners working in education, family welfare, and mental health.”

Given that conscientiousness may predict success in school and the workplace, interventions designed to enhance affectionate parenting could contribute to improving educational outcomes, mental health, and social well-being on a broader scale. By targeting parenting practices that promote positive traits in childhood, it may be possible to reduce disparities in life outcomes associated with socioeconomic background, family dynamics, and other environmental factors.

The study conducted by researchers at the University of Bath has made an exciting discovery: combining step tracking with mindfulness training via a mobile app can significantly boost people’s desire to exercise. The research was published in the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity and involved 109 adults in England who weren’t meeting recommended activity levels.

For 30 days, all participants aimed for 8,000 steps a day using a basic tracker. Half of them also followed a daily mindfulness program via a mobile app, with short practices focused on body awareness, movement, and exercise. These sessions were created by the research team in collaboration with the Medito Foundation and are available through the free mobile application Medito.

The results showed that both groups became more active over the month. On average, participants in the mindfulness group increased their activity by approximately 373 minutes of moderate exercise per week, while those in the steps-only group averaged 297 minutes per week. Notably, those who used the mindfulness app reported a significantly stronger intention to keep exercising, which may suggest that a gradual, longer-term change was beginning.

Lead researcher Dr Masha Remskar emphasized the importance of building internal drive towards behavior change, especially at a time when many people are struggling to stay active. Co-author Dr Max Western highlighted the potential for refining these tools to make them more engaging and effective, particularly for people balancing competing demands.

This study has laid the groundwork for future research exploring how mindfulness training can be made more appealing and effective in promoting exercise behavior.

The way we respond to death can vary greatly, even among humans. A recent study by UCL anthropologists has revealed that primate mothers, specifically macaques, exhibit different bereavement responses compared to humans. This groundbreaking research provides valuable insights into the complex and intriguing field of evolutionary thanatology – the study of death, bereavement, and grief across different species.

Published in Biology Letters, the researchers found that bereaved macaque mothers showed a short period of physical restlessness after their infant’s death, but did not display typical human signs of grief like lethargy and appetite loss. In fact, they spent less time resting than non-bereaved females during the first two weeks following their infants’ deaths.

The researchers suggest that this initial restlessness might represent an initial period of “protest” among the bereaved macaque mothers, similar to what is observed in studies on mother-infant separation in primates. However, unlike humans, this “protest” phase was not followed by an extended period of despair or other behavioral markers of grief commonly associated with human behavior.

This study is significant because it represents the first systematic investigation into whether primate mothers display similar behavioral responses to death as seen in human grief. The researchers observed the behavior of 22 macaque mothers at the Caribbean Primate Research Center on Cayo Santiago, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico. Half of the macaques observed (11) had recently lost an infant (on average 16 days prior), while the other non-bereaved half acted as a control group.

Behavioral observations were categorized into resting, feeding, grooming, and displacement behaviors, which were recorded by the researchers over a 16-day period using smartphones with CyberTracker software. The results show that there was no difference in time spent foraging, grooming, or doing displacement behaviors among bereaved macaques compared to non-bereaved ones.

This study provides a fascinating contribution to the emerging field of evolutionary thanatology and raises important questions about whether grief is a uniquely human experience. As co-author Dr Alecia Carter notes, “Following the loss of an infant, we had expected the macaque mothers to spend more time resting, as is common among bereaved humans. What we actually observed was the opposite.”

Lead author MSc student Emily Johnson adds, “Death is an inevitable part of life and how we respond to death can vary greatly, even among humans. We wanted to explore how the behavioral response to death, the experience of grief, differs between primates and humans.”