Life history strategy and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Life history theory (LHT) describes how animals evolve to maximize reproductive fitness in relation to their environmental conditions. Species fall along a continuum based on whether they tend towards a slow life strategy or a fast life strategy. A key factor that underlies the strategy adopted is the uncertainty of the environment (stable and predictable or uncertain and hostile). The COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented event producing very high levels of uncertainty on a global scale and consequently, varying levels of anxiety in individuals. The goal of this study was to determine whether life history strategy can be used to predict individuals’ experiences of anxiety during the pandemic. It was hypothesized that slow life strategists would experience more anxiety due to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic compared to fast life strategists who are more used to uncertain environments. Participants were first assessed on their life history strategy. An experimental manipulation was used to prime half of the participants to engage in thoughts about the COVID-19 pandemic while the other half experienced a calming stimulus. State and trait levels of anxiety were measured subsequently. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyze the relationship between the variables. It showed that while everyone who experienced the COVID-19 prime had higher scores on the state anxiety scale, slow life strategists were less stressed in this condition compared to fast life strategists. No interaction effects were observed. While the results did not appear to support the research hypothesis, there was an overall relationship between LHT and anxiety. These findings contribute to the life history theory framework being developed as a model to explain human behavior in the context of evolutionary psychology.