Holidays Can Affect When Expectant Mothers Deliver

Holidays Can Affect When Expectant Mothers Deliver - Researchers have long suspected that holidays and culturally meaningful events can play a role in medical outcomes. Some believe that terminally ill patients, for example, can hang on to life for religious events, birthdays and symbolically important occasions, though decades of study of the question have yielded mixed results.

It has been unclear whether a similar holiday-postponement effect could be seen in pregnant women. In a study published this month, however, researchers at the Yale School of Public Health reviewed millions of birth certificates and found a 5.3 percent dip in spontaneous births on Halloween, suggesting that a mother’s mental state may play a role in when she goes into labor. The researchers also noted a 16.9 percent drop in Caesarean births on Halloween, perhaps indicating that many women avoid scheduling the procedure then.

The scientists looked at all births in the United States over an 11-year period that occurred within one week on either side of Halloween, adjusting for variables like day of the week. The 1.8 million births revealed a clear reluctance to start labor around the festival of the dead.

But would a more symbolically positive holiday have the reverse effect?

To find out, the researchers studied 1.7 million births that occurred within a week of Valentine’s Day over the same 11 years. They found a 3.6 percent spike in spontaneous births on Valentine’s and a 12.1 percent rise in Caesareans.


THE BOTTOM LINE

New research suggests that women may be able to control the timing of spontaneous births around certain holidays. ( nytimes.com )

READ MORE - Holidays Can Affect When Expectant Mothers Deliver

A Mother's Love May Keep the Doctor Away

A Mother's Love May Keep the Doctor Away - An extra dose of motherly nurturing insulates children from lifelong health problems associated with poverty, a new study says.

The study found that people whose parents did not finish high school were 1.4 times more likely to develop a condition called metabolic syndrome by middle age than children raised by college-educated parents. Metabolic syndrome is a precursor to diabetes and heart disease.

However, among people from less-educated households, those who said they had a very nurturing mother were less likely to develop metabolic syndrome, according to the study published Friday (Sept. 23) in the journal Psychological Science. A nurturing mother in a more educated household had no effect on the likelihood that her adult children had developed metabolic syndrome.

Parents' education can be a more reliable indicator of a child's home life than family income, said Lisa Berkman, director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Families may fall into low income because of unlucky circumstances such as illness, but still have some of the protective benefits education seems to bring to households.

Researchers "often look at education, because it makes a stronger case," said Berkman, who was not involved with the new study.

Low income and lack of education are often tied to poor health, but the study suggests that the connections between socioeconomic status and chronic health conditions are not as clear as the effects of genetics and lifestyle, the researchers said.

Still, it was striking to see a disadvantaged childhood could manifest in physical disease, said Margie Lachman, a co-author of the new study.

"It [childhood experience] shows up under the skin and in the body as an important risk factor," said Lachman, who is the director of the Lifespan Initiative on Healthy Aging at Brandeis University.

Education is not the whole story

A team of researchers mined data from a subset of 1,200 participants in the decade-long National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) looking for correlations between socioeconomic status as a child and the risk of metabolic syndrome as an adult. The adult participants filled out questionnaires about their parents' behaviors, and researchers checked their blood pressure, blood sugar, stomach fat and other signs of metabolic syndrome.

Previous results from MIDUS showed adults' education levels influence their risk for disability, memory and cognitive reasoning problems, said Lachman, one of the principle investigators on the MIDUS study.

"But not everybody who has low education does poorly in these areas," Lachman said.

The study showed that parents' education level was not the single determining factor in children's health: half of children in the least-educated households grew up to develop metabolic syndrome by middle age, but 31 percent of children from college-educated households developed metabolic syndrome, too.

And adults from a disadvantaged household who went on to earn higher degrees were still more likely to develop metabolic syndrome than those raised in more-educated households.

Nurturing, the results implied, could be one difference that explains why some people go on to live healthy lives despite their circumstances, and others don't.

The researchers measured parental nurturing with survey questions such as "How much did she/he understand your problems and worries?" or "How much time and attention did she/he give you when you needed it?"

The researchers said that this type of study cannot prove why or how a nurturing mother protects her children's health over the long term. Yet previous studies have shown "nurturant caregivers imbue children with the sense that the world is a safe place and others can be trusted," the authors from the University of British Columbia and the University of California Los Angeles wrote in the discussion.

"These beliefs may enable disadvantaged youngsters to read less threat into their social worlds, with a consequent reduction in the wear-and-tear such vigilance can place on bodily systems," they wrote.

Fathers' nurturing was found not to have an effect in the study, and authors hypothesized that either mothers have a unique contribution to children's health, or that gender roles during the participants' childhood after World War II could have influenced the results.

A 'constant test' for moms

Studies have found good social ties and stable income lead to better health, Berkman said.

"When you have neither of them you are at double jeopardy," she said.

And while improving education and socioeconomic status would likely help children grow up to be healthier adults, Berkman said there are also policy changes to family leave laws and flexible work schedules that could give families the opportunity to be more nurturing at home.

"Mothers in almost all cases try really hard. We live in a country where it's a constant test, and it's more of a constant test for those who have the least resources," Berkman said.

Pass it on: Moms who provide extra nurturing and comfort may also be giving their kids lifelong protection against chronic disease. ( LiveScience.com )

READ MORE - A Mother's Love May Keep the Doctor Away

Could you marry a man you didn't love? These five women did - for VERY different reasons. So how have their relationships fared since?

Could you marry a man you didn't love? These five women did - for VERY different reasons. So how have their relationships fared since?

I wanted to please my parents

Diane Pulford, 52, from Peterborough, runs her own jewellery business. She has one son, Michael, 29, and is single. She says:

My wedding day in June 1977 was gloriously warm and sunny and I remember thinking that being cooped up in a church and hotel was a massive waste.

I even said to my mother, Florence: ‘I hope you’re happy, I can think of better things to do with my time.'

Under pressure: Diane Pulford married Tom in 1977

'Carol, my older sister who’d made my wedding dress, was horrified and told me not to be so selfish and to think of all the people who’d gone to so much trouble to make the day perfect.

'I was 19 years old at the time — in hindsight, far too young to marry — and my fiancé, Tony, was 21.

'He was a lovely, polite and kind young man, but he didn’t make my heart flutter. I liked him enormously, but I didn’t love him.

'My father, Bill, was an old-fashioned, working-class man. He’d tease me about having my head in the clouds and his mantra was: ‘Love doesn’t pay the bills.’

'I met Tony when I was a filing clerk at the firm he worked for. He was well spoken, middle-class and had an engineering degree. In other words, he was the ‘man with prospects’ my mother was forever talking about.

'Mum was always on my case, telling me I’d be a fool to let him go and how I’d be set up for life if we married.

'My previous boyfriend, who I’d been crazy about, had hurt me badly by cheating on me with my best friend.

'Tony never let me down and, after months of nagging, I began to think that my parents were right and I should take him off the market.

'So, after just four months of dating, we were engaged. Nine months later we married in front of 100 people.

'On the day I felt like a fraud. Tony talked excitedly about our future plans, while I felt flat and numb.

'We moved into a lovely three-bedroom house and I busied myself with the decorating, cooking and trying to be a good wife.

'But I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. I felt lonely and unhappy and would deliberately provoke rows so I could justify storming off to stay at my parents’ house.

'After 18 months, Tony came home from work and said: ‘This isn’t working, is it?’ I moved out that night and we divorced three years later.

'I don’t blame my parents, they just wanted the best for me. I was the one who thought dependability and financial security could make up for love.

'I spent the next 20 years with Mark, the father of my son, but we never married. I’m single now and happy to stay so.'

I married a man I'd just met

Lisa Mahon, 31, is an accounts manger. She lives in Witham, Essex, with her husband Edward, 40, a sales executive, with their daughter Georgia, three, and her son Dion, five, from a previous relationship. The couple have been married for four years. She says:

'I married Edward less than a week after meeting him. My friends were shocked because they never thought of me as a reckless person.

'It all began in the spring of 2007 when I had split from Dion’s father. Feeling lonely one evening I was surfing the internet and stumbled across Edward’s blog. It included extracts of his poetry, which I found wonderfully romantic and moving.

Cyber dating: Lisa Mahon married Edward within six days of meeting him following getting to know each other over the internet

'I saw that he was in Atlanta, U.S., but I still sent him a message complimenting his writing. He replied and we struck up some email banter. We then began talking daily on the phone and realised there was some real chemistry.

'After four months, Edward asked me to fly to Atlanta to marry him. Most of my friends and family were horrified but sometimes in life you have to go with your gut instinct.

'In November 2007, I travelled to Atlanta and knew instantly that we were going to have an amazing life. I didn’t love him then — because I think that takes time — but I knew it would come.

'Six days after I arrived we married at a local register office with no guests. The rashness only made it all the more exciting.

'Everyone back home was highly suspicious, accusing Edward of being everything from a crook to a visa hunter. But the fact was that he was financially secure and desperate for me to live in the U.S., but I didn’t want to move Dion away from his grandparents.

'Five months after our wedding, Edward was able to move to the UK after securing a work visa. He got a well-paid job straight away and our daughter, Georgia, arrived in April 2009. Quite simply, he’s the best husband and father I could wish for.

'I know they say ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’ but that won’t be the case with us.

'The people who were so judgmental have now been forced to admit that we make a fantastic couple.'

He was desperately ill and I felt sorry for him

Patricia Beaumont, 35, and husband Jason, 39, live with their two children, Joseph, 14, and Joshua, 11, in Ipswich, Suffolk. Patricia is a housewife, while Jason runs a decorating company. They have been married for 14 years. She says:

'I was six months pregnant when I walked down the aisle in the summer of 1997 in a dress that had been altered to hide my growing bump.

'At that moment, I felt only anger and resentment at being cajoled into a wedding I didn’t want and a baby I hadn’t planned for — all because of my fiance’s serious and unexpected illness.

'I was 19 when I met Jason in a nightclub. He was good looking and fun, but marriage and babies were not even on my mind.

Baby love? Patricia was 19 and pregnant when she married cancer-stricken Joseph

'We’d been dating ten months when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma — a very rare cancer that affects the spine and back.

'He underwent radiotherapy to shrink the tumours and doctors told him the treatment could leave him infertile. Neither of us knew that I was in the early stages of pregnancy.

'The thought of a childless future nursing a sick man terrified me and, as heartless as it sounds, I told Jason I wanted to end it.

'Shortly afterwards, I began to feel unwell. When a friend suggested I take a pregnancy test, I agreed just to remove the possibility.

'Sure enough it came back positive.

'I fled to Greece to try to clear my head but Jason called me pleading for us to marry and raise our child together.

'At that stage, he was still seriously ill and I had visions of being a widowed single mother. I felt in absolute despair.

'When I returned to the UK, Jason and his mother had booked the church!

'I’d have been the cruellest woman in the world to cancel the wedding and not continue with the pregnancy when it would make Jason so happy.

'The first year of our marriage was hellish — Jason just wanted us to be a family whereas I felt that marriage and motherhood had been forced upon me.

'Unbelievably, his treatment did not render him infertile and our second son Joshua arrived three years after Joseph.

'We were approaching our fourth anniversary when Jason’s cancer returned with a vengeance. His underwent a bone marrow transplant but his prognosis was grim.

'Suddenly, the thought of losing this wonderful, caring husband and father was unbearable.

'I realised then — for the first time — how deeply I loved him.

'I stayed by his bed for six weeks telling him over and over that I loved him — trying to make up for all the times I’d never said it before.

'He pulled through and has been cancer free for the past nine years.

'Despite our shaky start, I now adore him and believe we will be together for ever.'

My family chose my husband

Anita Singh, 42, a business advisor, has been married to civil engineer Amarjit Singh, 39, for 11 years. They don’t have any children and live in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. She says:

'Amarjit and I had only met twice before we married in April 2000. Our match was arranged for us by friends and family. I never questioned it and trusted that the people who knew us and loved us would get it right.

Slow burn: Anita and Amarjit married less than a week after meeting after being set up by their families

'Of course, we didn’t love each other at the time but I’d no doubt we could make it work.

'My parents came to Britain from India in the Sixties to run a Post Office and I was born here, along with my three younger siblings. Although my parents had a successful arranged marriage, they never forced us into one.

'I went to university and had a very British childhood and adolescence, with lots of fun and freedom — but I was always knew my parents would like me to marry an Indian man.

'By the time I reached the age of 31, and was still single, they started dropping not very subtle hints about me leaving it a bit late.

'Mum’s relatives back in India were horrified that I was still unmarried in my 30s and took it upon themselves to set me up.

'There is nothing an Indian auntie likes better than a spot of match-making.

'At the time I thought: ‘Why not?’

'I didn’t have to go through with it and men weren’t exactly falling over themselves to date me. My mum was 19 when she married my dad and their union is unbelievably deep, genuine and strong. On a holiday to India I was introduced to Amarjit. He came from a good, modern-thinking family. He was educated, polite and very handsome but, even so, after our first meeting I wasn’t blown away.

'My family kept telling me what a wonderful husband he’d make and how our zodiac charts showed the best match they had ever seen.

'So, two week’s later, we announced our engagement. My mother is never wrong about anything and I trusted her to get this right too

'After an amazing traditional wedding in India, we came back to the UK. My British friends were shocked. And I won’t deny the first three years were very testing — we were, after all, both living with strangers.

'But slowly, day by day, as I got to know Amarjit’s kindness and humour, love grew.

'Now he is not only my best friend, he is my one and only true love.'

I yearned for a baby

Andrea Pierce, 44, is an office administrator. She has one son, Tom, 11, and lives in Windsor, Berks. She says:

'Justin and I had been dating for four years when he proposed. We were walking in a beautiful field when he suddenly dropped to one knee and offered me a sapphire and diamond engagement ring.

'It should have been the most romantic moment of my life but all I could think was: ‘I wouldn’t have chosen that ring.’

Regrets: Andrea Pierce had been dating Justin for four years before he proposed

'I was approaching 30 and my biological clock was ticking loudly. All my friends had married and had kids and I was feeling left on the shelf.

'Justin was nice looking, mature and had a good, well-paid job in the property business.

'I didn’t love him but I, foolishly, thought he offered my last hope of becoming a mother.

'So I agreed to marry him and six months later, in July 1995, and in front of 70 guests, I vowed to become his wife.

'We moved into a fantastic four-bedroom detached house in the country and, aged 33, I eventually gave birth to my beautiful son, Tom.

'Even though I had yearned for a child, I did not adapt to the role of mum very easily. I struggled to cope and became very unhappy.

'Justin was a good man and provider, but the feeling of love I hoped would come never did.

'Six years after we married I went to the Henley Regatta and got chatting to a man who made my stomach lurch in a way my husband never did. I knew then I could not stay with Justin. Two weeks later, he moved out.

'Needless to say, the relationship with the man from Henley petered out. I feel guilty for the way I’ve treated Justin and regret throwing it all away for a meaningless fling — but I only have myself to blame.' ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Could you marry a man you didn't love? These five women did - for VERY different reasons. So how have their relationships fared since?

TV Watching Is Bad for Babies' Brains

Babies who watch TV are more likely to have delayed cognitive development and language at 14 months, especially if they're watching programs intended for adults and older children. We probably knew that 24 and Grey's Anatomy don't really qualify as educational content, but it's surprising that TV-watching made a difference at such a tender age.

Babies who watched 60 minutes of TV daily had developmental scores one-third lower at 14 months than babies who weren't watching that much TV. Though their developmental scores were still in the normal range, the discrepancy may be due to the fact that when kids and parents are watching TV, they're missing out on talking, playing, and interactions that are essential to learning and development.

This new study, which appeared in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, followed 259 lower-income families in New York, most of whom spoke Spanish as their primary language at home. Other studies examining higher-income families have also come to the same conclusion: TV watching not only isn't educational, but it seems to stunt babies' development.

But what about "good" TV, like Sesame Street? The researchers didn't find any pluses or minuses when compared to non-educational programs designed for small children, like SpongeBob SquarePants. Earlier research by some of the same scientists, most of whom are at New York University School of Medicine-Bellevue Hospital Center, has found that parents whose children watch non-educational TV programs like Spongebob SquarePants spend less time reading to their children or teaching them.

At this point, parents reading this are probably saying D'oh! TV is so often a parent's good friend, keeping kids happily occupied so the grownups can cook dinner, answer the phone, or take a shower. But clearly that electronic babysitter is not an educational aid.

The bottom line: This latest study adds more fuel to a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics that babies under age 2 watch no TV at all. If you've just got to watch Dexter, it's best to make sure the tots are fast asleep. ( usnews.com )

READ MORE - TV Watching Is Bad for Babies' Brains

Pregnancy Myths -- Busted!

Pregnancy Myths -- Busted!. Do this. Don't do that. With all the pregnancy advice out there, it's hard to know what to believe -- or whom to believe. But remember, every pregnancy is different, so follow your doctor's orders above all else.

Myth 1: Eat Three Healthy Meals a Day

False! You should be eating six or seven small meals every two to three hours. "Eating frequently and from various food groups will keep your blood sugar in a constant range, which is healthy for you and your baby," says Stuart Fischbein, MD, coauthor of Fearless Pregnancy.

Myth 2: You Can Drink Alcohol

True! If you want to toast your sister at her wedding with a glass of bubbly, "go ahead," says Mary Jane Minkin, MD, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine and coauthor of A Woman's Guide to Sexual Health. "One glass of wine isn't going to hurt the baby," she says. But one glass here and there doesn't mean nine -- in fact, two or more alcoholic drinks daily can lead to fetal alcohol syndrome. So while it's best to cut out alcohol completely, Dr. Minkin says that an occasional small glass of wine with your pasta primavera is harmless.

Myth 3: Decaf Only

False! One small cup of coffee a day is perfectly fine. While a recent study at McGill University in Montreal did find that the caffeine in two to three cups of coffee a day increases the risk of miscarriage, it didn't consider how the coffee was brewed and the type of coffee used. Dr. Minkin points out that a French blend served black is much stronger than a weak cup of American coffee mixed with milk. It's another controversial subject for sure, but moderate caffeine intake isn't likely to harm you or your baby. The same goes for sodas with a caffeine jolt.

Myth 4: Cut out the Cheese

True! Well, you don't have to ban all cheeses. Some kinds, like cheddar and Swiss, are innocuous because they've been pasteurized. It's the soft, unpasteurized products like Brie, feta, and goat cheese that might carry food-borne illnesses. If you're lucky, the market you frequent will carry pasteurized versions -- just start looking at labels more often. And then you can still enjoy your crackers with cheese.

Myth 5: You're Eating for Two

False! Pregnancy isn't a time to pig out. You certainly have a bit more leeway when it comes to a second helping of supper, but on average, women need only about 300 extra calories a day.

Myth 6: Say So Long to Seafood

False! Chances are that if the reputable (and tasty) sushi bar you love so much hasn't made you sick pre-pregnancy, you're not at risk when with child. Yes, there's a greater risk of ingesting bad kinds of bacteria from raw foods (so you might feel more comfortable with a cooked-shrimp roll), but if you had spicy yellowfin tuna before realizing you were pregnant, no harm done. The dangerous mercury levels, you ask? Again, it's all about moderation. Enjoy tuna on rye once a week, not daily.

Myth 7: You'll Have to Suffer Through Sickness

False! Many OTC meds are safe during pregnancy, but somehow women believe they need to put up with migraines and be a slave to the runs. Not so. You should consult your ob-gyn before you take anything, but many experts give the following drugs the green light: Tylenol for headaches and fever; Tums or Mylanta for heartburn; Imodium for diarrhea; Robitussin for colds; and Sudafed or Benadryl for allergies. Many prescription drugs are also okay to continue with during pregnancy, but again, follow your doctor's orders.

Myth 8: They'll Know You're Not a Natural Blond!

False! Being pregnant doesn't have to compromise your appearance (at least not above the belly), but you do need to be smart. Dr. Fischbein says that while there's a theoretical risk associated with coloring your hair (chemicals being absorbed through the scalp), studies haven't shown anything conclusive. He recommends avoiding dye for at least the first trimester, when the baby's organs are forming.

Myth 9: Manicures Are Out

False! You don't need to forgo weekly manis just because you want to be a mommy. "You would need massive and long-term exposure to the products before there was a chance of problems," says Dr. Fischbein. You might get a little nauseous from the fumes with your newfound sensitivity to odors, but if that's the case, make your appointments for less crowded times of the day. (thenest.com )

READ MORE - Pregnancy Myths -- Busted!

In-Law Proof Your Home

In-Law Proof Your Home. Wait, is that the doorbell? It's time to hide the vices ( 71% of Nesties admit to doing it!) and steal these tips to make your abode more PG: parentally gratifying.

Whip out family photos

Replace those crazy Cancun pics of you doing apple-pie shots with family photos (son plus his beaming mom at the wedding is always a hit). Hint: Slide your family photo behind the crazy one in the frame. Should you get a surprise visit, you can quickly swap out the incriminating shot.

Bring out the blooms

Remember after your wedding, when you looked at each other and said, “What the hell are we going to do with all of these vases?” Pull them out and fill ’em with flowers.

Lower the bar

Your frat brothers might be totally impressed by your extensive, top-shelf bar, but if your in-laws see it, they’re going to spend the rest of the night researching Al-Anon groups on the Internet. Streamline your liquor selection and display just a few select bottles.

Hide the XXX stuff

Take a good look in your nightstand and goodie drawer and decide what you wouldn’t want them to see. Birth control pills, some lube, condoms and fun electronic devices scream, “Your child is having sex, dirty sex!” Stash it all in your sock drawer.

Stock the fridge

Parents always worry about whether their kid is eating right, so load your fridge with fresh fruit and veggies, and keep a variety of cookbooks in view...even if you’re really subsisting on Subway and cereal.

Show off the tchotchkes

When ol’ Betty and Bob come over, they’ll be looking around for the (tacky/cheap/inappropriate) gifts they bought you. So keep all the knickknacks you were given in a box under your bed and quickly display them right before your in-laws arrive. Once they leave, toss ‘em back in their hiding place. ( thenest.com )

READ MORE - In-Law Proof Your Home

Why Nice Guys Finish Last New Research Points to Biological Reason Why Girls Like Bad Boys

Why Nice Guys Finish Last. New Research Points to Biological Reason Why Girls Like Bad Boys. Ricky Menezes, a 22-year-old from Marlborough, Mass., says he knows he will hook up with "about 20 girls" in the next month.

New research suggests that bad boys may indeed beat nice guys when it comes to getting female attention.

(Getty/ABC News)

How does he know this, you ask? Ricky knows this because he's what we call a "bad boy" -- the type of guy who knows exactly how to act, what to say and how to manipulate women into giving him what he wants.

"It all started in high school," Ricky said. "I started being the outgoing, crazy, funny kid that everyone thought was fun and wanted to hang out with."

After being validated by his peers in high school, Ricky said he has more or less mastered the art of being a bad boy, and has done so with one overriding goal in mind -- sexual conquest.

"I don't pretend to be anything I'm not," Ricky said. "I'm honest and outspoken. I say that I'm just looking to hook up. ... I'm not afraid to go for it, and I rarely get rejected.

"Oh, and I'm in a band. You have to be in a band. Girls love guys in bands," he added.

Most everyone knows -- or at least knows of -- a stereotypical "bad boy" like Ricky. The guy with such high self-esteem he could aptly be called a narcissist. The guy who wins women over with deceit, callousness and impulsive behavior. Basically, the type of guy who resembles a real-life version of Hugh Grant's character in "Bridget Jones' Diary."

The success of Ricky and so many other "bad boys" with women seems to add weight to the popular saying "good guys finish last."

And there might be more than just a grain of truth in these mantras about bad boys; new research suggests they might actually be attracting more women than their "nicer" counterparts.

The Positive Side of Negative Traits

Researchers at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces gave 200 college students personality tests to see how many of what psychologists call "dark triad traits" they possessed. These traits include callousness, impulsive behavior, extroversion, narcissism and various other anti-social traits for which "bad boys" are known.

The researchers also asked about the student's sex lives, their feelings about sexual relationships, their number of sexual partners, and what they are seeking in sexual or romantic relationships.

According to Peter Jonason, lead study investigator, although society tends to look down upon these "negative" dark triad personality traits, there seems to be quite an upside to being a bad boy.

"We would traditionally consider these dark triad traits to be adverse personality traits, and we think women would avoid these kinds of men, but what we show is counterintuitive -- that women are attracted to these bad boys and they do pretty well in terms of sheer numbers of sexual partners," Jonason explained. "They're taking quantity over quality as their sexual agenda, being serially monogamous and having multiple partners or one-night stands."

Jonason compared the type of "dark triad bad boy" that the study refers to as a modern-day James Bond figure -- a man with little empathy for others, a penchant for fast cars and even faster women, and a seeker of short-term rather than long-term goals -- especially concerning the opposite sex.

And because these characters appear in this study to be successful at achieving their short-term goals -- which, in this case, is a short-term sexual relationship -- Jonason believes such character traits have persevered in so many people because they seem to be evolutionarily successful.

"Dark triad traits are useful in pursuing our agendas at any given time," Jonason explained. "If you like someone and want to meet them and date them, people who have the dark triad traits appear to be more successful at facilitating short-term mating."

Jonason validated this point with a comparison to the popular VH1 show "The Pick-Up Artist," wherein nerdy, nice guys meet with a typical bad boy to learn how to pick up more of these dark triad traits -- and also more women.

Nice Guys Win in the End

But some experts say it might not be so simple.

Heather Rupp, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, believes that the reason women may be drawn toward the "bad boys" is more because of physiology more than psychology.

"I think it goes back to the physiological underpinnings of such an attraction," Rupp said. "For instance, testosterone is a hormone that in men is linked to more dominant personality traits -- outgoing personalities and charm and things like that. And men with higher testosterone are rated by independent observers as being more outgoing and charming than others."

Some experts, however, believe that these narcissistic males tend to embellish the self-reported tales of their own sexual conquest, leading others to believe they are more sexually successful than they really are.

"People high in dark triad traits tend to say what they think others want to hear," said Everett Worthington, professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Moreover, Worthington notes that while some of these males may be more successful at short-term sexual relationships, their overall success with long-term relationships is often compromised by their dark triad traits.

"The manipulative 'It's all about me, so tell 'em anything to get sex' behavior is likely to have more short-term sexual success," Worthington said. "A strategy of building trust and intimacy and commitment is, by nature, going to take longer. Thus, the payoffs are likely to be greater in the short term. However, long-term relationship survival is likely to be strongly disadvantaged in people with dark triad traits."

So maybe good guys don't always finish last. ( abcnews.go.com )

READ MORE - Why Nice Guys Finish Last New Research Points to Biological Reason Why Girls Like Bad Boys

Social Ladder Forms Early in Life

Social Ladder Forms Early in Life. The Social Pecking Order Starts in Preschool but Isn't Inevitable, Experts Say. Lori Holden, 46, of Denver, Colo., remembered fourth-grade as the year she was forever labeled a "nerd, or a dork, or pick the pejorative of your choice." It was a label that stuck until college.

Researchers say children form hierarchies of popularity surprisingly early -- and these rankings can stick for a very long time.

(/Getty Images)

At 46, now with a successful life, Holden said she is perfectly fine with her nerdy identity. But after watching her two young children play with others, she took pause.

"It is doing things like telling another child, 'Don't play with that yet, you can't play with that,' and then turning to another child and saying, 'Just you and I will play together,'" Holden said.

"I watch my children with their peers and wonder if I am seeing the early stages of their social-ladder construction," she said.

"I can see this happening at age 4 and 5."

Holden has it right, according to Maurice Elias, professor of psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the author of "Emotionally Intelligent Parenting."

"It is true that it's a natural tendency in kids to form groups and have in-groups and out-groups, and you can see that in very young children," Elias said.

A small group of children in preschool might isolate one child. By fourth-grade, Elias said, children become more sophisticated at creating lasting labels for entire groups.

"But age 4 to 5 is when you really want to start to think about this, in my opinion," he said.

Long-term studies show once children get labeled in a group, clique or ladder on the social rung, that status tends to stick all the way through the high school years, Elias said.

"It may be an impulse, but there's no reason why all children, including children that are a little different, can't play together," he said. "The reason we were given frontal lobes is so that we would modify these sorts of instinctual tendencies."

Elias said researchers have learned the drive to exclude can be molded and controlled by teachers so that no strict mini-caste system or pervasive pecking order rules the school.

Reading, and Writing and ... Social Utopia?

Elias is part of a burgeoning movement to teach empathy and "emotional learning" in schools across the United States. In 2003, Illinois passed the Illinois Children's Mental Health Act to require emotional learning in schools. Similar legislation was passed in New York State in 2006. Some groups estimate that 10 percent of all U.S. schools now use some kind of evidence-based, emotional learning program.

By 2007, governments in Spain and Malaysia adopted programs for emotional learning.

Stemming Social Ladders Internationally

"In Singapore, it's now been standardized as part of the curriculum there," said Mary Utne O'Brien, vice president of strategic initiatives for the non-profit Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

"The international community in Singapore said 'our students are technically brilliant here, they always win national science awards, but they aren't creatively solving problems'," said O'Brien, who is also a professor of education and psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

With slipping international rankings in math and science test scores, the United States seems to have the opposite problem.

O'Brien said educators on American soil dealing with behavioral problems were moved to try the emotional learning program.

"It was a bunch of teachers saying these problems get too big for us to handle by the time kids get older," O'Brien said. "We'd be much smarter to give children the emotional tools to start out in school in the first place.

"We don't think of these things as an intelligence, we think of them as skills that can be taught."

As Holden guessed, the social hierarchy does start at a very young age and, as she hoped, there might be something she and the children's teachers can do about it.

"As a parent, you want to work on both ends of it," Holden said. "You don' want them to be a mean person, but you don't want them to be a victim of a mean person."

What Parents and Teachers Can Do About Social Ladders

Elias said some researchers have shown that children do have a natural temperament that might lead them to exclude or be excluded. But these temperaments are like a "factory preset"

"Kids will try on different behavior, their temperament can lead them to start somewhere," Elias said. "Some kids can start out by being shy, some kids can start out by being very directive and bossy."

Teachers Impact the Cliques in a School

Depending on how on how far the behavior gets them, the child might adjust the degree of their natural temperament, Elias said.

"The most powerful factor in that is the environment," said Elias.

Parents and teachers needn't make children play with everyone, but social learning experts say that not tolerating emotionally aggressive behavior in the same way of enforcing a rule of "no hitting" can go a long way. So, too, can encouraging children to recognize similarities in their classmates.

"Even when we see these longitudinal studies that kids retain these attributes over time, but we don't know what the adults did during that time," Elias said.

Since the mid-1990s, groups like CASEL and others have done intensive studies about which social interventions work. Even something in kindergarten as simple as the seminal book "You Can't Say You Can't Play," by Vivian Gussin Paley, can have a lasting effect in students.

But despite the reports of classrooms with happier, more congenial children, researchers like Elias and people at CASEL weren't universally sought after by schools.

Why Care About the Social Ladder Anyway?

"We had parents say, 'In our neighborhood, if you teach my kids this, they're going to be sliced and diced on the street.' This is not the way we live," O'Brien said.

"It is a question as to whether the little lambs from these schools are brought to slaughter later," O'Brien added. "But more it's administrators fearing that this was not the role of the school."

Even in more touchy-feely districts, O'Brien said, many administrators balked at trying to spend money on programs for empathy and emotional learning when the district needed to compete in academic arenas.

That is, until more studies showed a link between the emotional learning programs and higher performance in academics.

O'Brien and her colleagues met Friday with representatives of the U.S. Department of Education in talks about incorporating standards in the federal levels for emotional learning programs.

"They have a profound impact on their behaviors, it affects academic achievement and standardized test scores," O'Brien said. "Once the academic link was established, it really became a point of entree." ( abcnews.go.com )

READ MORE - Social Ladder Forms Early in Life