Richard Lerner's new book, Final Solutions: Biology, Prejudice, and Genocide, is a powerful and troubling treatise. It weaves together several topical strands into a direct, clear, and compelling argument. The chief strength of the book lies in its focus on a single aspect of Nazi ideology (biological determinism), the role played in the maintenance of that ideology by medical and biological scientists, and Lerner's warnings about those he views as the contemporary successors of these scientists. Unlike Lerner's other contributions to the scholarly literature, this book is less a psychological treatise than it is a polemical history of some behavioral sciences in the twentieth century, Lerner's argument is provocative, clearly reasoned, and demands consideration by social scientists, humanists, and those who would avoid both the repetition of the past and our ignorance of its costs and lessons.

Numerous studies have documented the effects of personality on health outcomes. However, which traits are most relevant to health, and the precise magnitude of their effects, is inconsistent across studies. The present study used a large sample (N=460,172) to replicate and extend the relations between the Big Five and three health-related outcomes: self-reported health, body mass index, and substance use. Low Conscientiousness predicted all outcomes, indicating that individuals who are less responsible and less self-controlled tend to report poorer health, be more overweight, and engage in more substance use. In addition, individuals who were more emotionally unstable (high Neuroticism) reported poorer health, and individuals prone to seek out social experiences and rewards (high Extraversion) engaged in more frequent substance use.