Latest Michael Gurven Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online The field of psychology has long adhered to an elegant theory of personality structure known the five-factor-model (FFM). The theory is built around five core personality traits known as the “Big Five” that are believed to be universal features of human psychology. But a team of anthropologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is now casting doubt on the universal applicability of this model based on their...

Study of farmer-foragers raises doubt about application of popular personality model Five personality traits widely thought to be universal across cultures might not be, according to a study of an isolated Bolivian society. Researchers who spent two years looking at 1,062 members of the Tsimane culture found that they didn't necessarily exhibit the five broad dimensions of personality – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism – also known as the "Big...

As part of an isolated indigenous group in central Bolivia, Tsimane men spend much of their time hunting, foraging, fishing, and clearing land by hand to grow crops. Their ability to maintain the physical activity required to survive each day might imply they have higher than average male testosterone levels. Anthropologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of Washington have found, however, that the baseline testosterone level of Tsimane men is 33 percent lower than that of men...