Mental weakness can be your greatest asset in your career.
Data collected from more than 400,000 American and British workers revealed a number of differences between a person’s occupation and several psychiatric traits and disorders, including ADHD, autism, depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety. It has become clear that there is a clear correlation between genetic predisposition.
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai say these psychological habits suggest that, to some extent, they can influence people’s career choices.
“Despite being common and highly heritable, neuropsychiatric disorders remain highly stigmatized,” said lead author Georgios Voloudakis. told Medical Express.
“We were inspired to investigate whether certain genetic mutations that increase the risk of developing these diseases may have potential benefits. [in these fields]” Voloudakis continued.
“In addition to looking at potential benefits, we also wanted to investigate the disadvantages and barriers that individuals with a higher genetic predisposition to neuropsychiatric traits may face.”
An analysis of 20 different professions found that artists and designers are more likely to suffer from mental health conditions such as anorexia, bipolar disorder, autism, schizophrenia and depression.
For some careers, only one significant correlation was evident. That said, aside from creators, STEM professionals were the most likely to be on the autism spectrum. Schizophrenia was most prevalent among community and social workers. And anorexia nervosa most often appears in teachers and educators.
The ostensibly most stable jobs were in architecture and engineering, health care, agriculture, business and finance, office administration and support, and administration and sales.
Meanwhile, the researchers noted that jobs most associated with ADHD tended to require the least education, revealing a potential systemic bias.
“For example, we found that some associations related to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were significantly mediated by educational attainment, which is a key driver of career paths; “This means that even without a diagnosis, systemic bias in education can disproportionately impact individuals with a higher genetic predisposition to ADHD,” Voloudakis said.
The survey results were published in a magazine, nature human behavioris considered statistically significant, but the researchers noted that genetic markers of mental illness may account for only 0.4% of the factors that determine a person’s career choice. They added that age and gender played a much more influential role.
“Even if these effects were small, we were able to reliably detect them because we studied so many people,” Voloudakis said. “These findings do not mean that we can predict a person’s job based on their genes. Rather, they highlight subtle group-level trends. On average, people have higher PGS for certain traits. may be slightly more likely to get a certain job.”
“Environmental, social, and individual factors continue to play a much larger role in shaping individual outcomes than any single genetic measure.”
