I’ve never been kissed: if your first kiss was in high school, you will have more self-esteem as an adult

I've never been kissed: if your first kiss was in high school, you will have more self-esteem as an adult

From our puberty, when we begin to compete sexually with each other, it is the moment in which we compare ourselves with our peers and, consequently, we shape our self-esteem.

Self-esteem and self-confidence, in fact, is very important at this stage. Those who display these attributes the most, the happier they seem and are also more popular and have more friends. For this reason, giving the first kiss at this stage of life can be so fundamental .

"Never Been Kissed"

In a recent study aptly titled Never Been Kissed, he has looked at the importance of the first kiss in adolescence. Through a survey of more than 700 college students, they identified the personality traits associated with never having made out with a romantic partner before finishing high school .

Carl Bergstrom , a biologist, and Jevin West , an information scientist discuss this study in their book Bullshit: Against Quackery (which we reviewed recently):

Apparently, positive self-esteem is one of the best predictors of having the experience of the first kiss before going to college. What makes people popular in high school dating isn’t personal beauty, brainpower, or taste in music – it’s self-confidence.

However, differentiating cause and effect is not easy. Is it the kiss that produces self-esteem or is it high self-esteem that tends to make the adolescent give their first kiss? Or maybe kissing is neither a cause nor a consequence of self-esteem. Perhaps both facts depend on another factor not yet identified .

And that is why it is also to identify some salary gaps, such as the height salary gap: tall men earn higher salaries on average. Why would an entrepreneur decide to pay a tall man more? Again, we are facing a complex network of causes that, again, could have their origin in puberty, as you can see in more detail in the following video: