4 research outputs found
The role of social connection on the experience of COVID-19 related post-traumatic growth and stress
Background
Historically social connection has been an important way through which
humans have coped with large-scale threatening events. In the context of
the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns have deprived people of major sources
of social support and coping, with others representing threats. Hence, a
major stressor during the pandemic has been a sense of social
disconnection and loneliness. This study explores how people's
experience of compassion and feeling socially safe and connected, in
contrast to feeling socially disconnected, lonely and fearful of
compassion, effects the impact of perceived threat of COVID-19 on
post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress.
Methods
Adult participants from the general population (N = 4057) across 21
countries worldwide, completed self-report measures of social connection
(compassion for self, from others, for others; social safeness), social
disconnection (fears of compassion for self, from others, for others;
loneliness), perceived threat of COVID-19, post-traumatic growth and
traumatic stress.
Results
Perceived threat of COVID-19 predicted increased post-traumatic growth
and traumatic stress. Social connection (compassion and social safeness)
predicted higher post-traumatic growth and traumatic stress, whereas
social disconnection (fears of compassion and loneliness) predicted
increased traumatic symptoms only. Social connection heightened the
impact of perceived threat of COVID-19 on post-traumatic growth, while
social disconnection weakened this impact. Social disconnection
magnified the impact of the perceived threat of COVID-19 on traumatic
stress. These effects were consistent across all countries.
Conclusions
Social connection is key to how people adapt and cope with the worldwide
COVID-19 crisis and may facilitate post-traumatic growth in the context
of the threat experienced during the pandemic. In contrast, social
disconnection increases vulnerability to develop post-traumatic stress
in this threatening context. Public health and Government organizations
could implement interventions to foster compassion and feelings of
social safeness and reduce experiences of social disconnection, thus
promoting growth, resilience and mental wellbeing during and following
the pandemic
Contrasting Computational Models of Mate Preference Integration Across 45 Countries.
Humans express a wide array of ideal mate preferences. Around the world, people desire romantic partners who are intelligent, healthy, kind, physically attractive, wealthy, and more. In order for these ideal preferences to guide the choice of actual romantic partners, human mating psychology must possess a means to integrate information across these many preference dimensions into summaries of the overall mate value of their potential mates. Here we explore the computational design of this mate preference integration process using a large sample of n = 14,487 people from 45 countries around the world. We combine this large cross-cultural sample with agent-based models to compare eight hypothesized models of human mating markets. Across cultures, people higher in mate value appear to experience greater power of choice on the mating market in that they set higher ideal standards, better fulfill their preferences in choice, and pair with higher mate value partners. Furthermore, we find that this cross-culturally universal pattern of mate choice is most consistent with a Euclidean model of mate preference integration
Assortative mating and the evolution of desirability covariation
Mate choice lies dose to differential reproduction, the engine of evolution. Patterns of mate choice consequently have power to direct the course of evolution. Here we provide evidence suggesting one pattern of human mate choice-the tendency for mates to be similar in overall desirability-caused the evolution of a structure of correlations that we call the d factor. We use agent-based models to demonstrate that assortative mating causes the evolution of a positive manifold of desirability, d, such that an individual who is desirable as a mate along any one dimension tends to be desirable across all other dimensions. Further, we use a large cross-cultural sample with n = 14,478 from 45 countries around the world to show that this d-factor emerges in human samples, is a cross-cultural universal, and is patterned in a way consistent with an evolutionary history of assortative mating. Our results suggest that assortative mating can explain the evolution of a broad structure of human trait covariation