Why People Are Different: A Scientific Perspective on Human Individuality

All people are different from one another. This fact seems so obvious that we rarely think about why it is, in fact, so. Why is someone a night owl while someone else is a lark, why does one person love sweets while another prefers bitter, why are some attracted to men while others to women, and why do some feel confined within conventional gender categories? Neuroscientist David Linden assessed the degree of human diversity by studying profiles on a dating site. It turns out that people are particularly willing to describe their characteristics there - from hair color to dietary and sexual preferences, from daily habits to allergies. "Why People Are Different" is an attempt to describe all facets of our uniqueness in one book. Linden discusses genetic variability and environmental influences, from the womb to adulthood, learning and individual experience, immunity and chemical receptors that indeed make it true that there's no accounting for taste. And although you have never doubted your uniqueness, you will still be fascinated to learn how complex and unpredictable the path you had to take for it was.