and yet "lawyers, judges, magistrates and other judicial workers" -- a profession not at all known for agreeableness -- have a divorce rate substantially below the median. (Shocked the hell out of me, to be sure.)
Huh? Those are all careers that require a high level of cooperation with people you might not like, a general understanding of civics and pro-social behavior, and a stick-to-it attitude. What's more, those careers, in my limited experience, tend to attract people who actually believe in civility, reasonableness, and agreeableness rather than people who would merely say they do.
> and yet "lawyers, judges, magistrates and other judicial workers" -- a profession not at all known for agreeableness
I think you are confusing lawyers, etc., with the litigants and other disputants whose conflicts provide them jobs. While hardball is sometimes necessary, understanding other people's interests and finding common ground is central to lawyers’ ability to achieve best resolution for their clients.
It would be interesting to see the stats for litigators versus other types of lawyers. If I had to guess patent lawyers would probably have a lower chance of divorce than litigators.
I am married to a litigator, and my background is computer engineering, although I'm now management.
About the GP comment, litigators are masterful in conducting problem dissection in a calm manner. It's very easy for us to communicate. The only difficult part, and I think this is universal, is that kids + no sleep = craziness. You can throw the stats out the windows if you have very young children.
Even when we go to school meetings with other parents yelling and screaming, we both found ourselves being on side of calm and to the point. Lawyers that like to argue in a public forum and use big words (as I've been told), are typically law students, and not lawyers :)
