Social contact is another example. If somebody else is in the room, I dont know of a human being alive that would be indifferent to that, Reiss says. Either you like it or you dont like it, and one way or another its going to affect your motivation. The study also showsno surprisethat men and women really are different. Men, for example, ranked sex and vengeance much higher than women.
Women are more sensitive to anxiety and pain than men.
Reiss believes we probably retain the same core values and desires throughout our lives, but age takes a toll. There is a massive lowering of desire in everything as people get older, Reiss says. Ambition goes down, sex goes down, everything goes down. Its more than just mellowing. As we get older, we just dont give a damn.