Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022;8(1):20-29.
doi: 10.1007/s40806-021-00306-9. Epub 2021 Nov 9.

Disease Prevalence and Fatality, Life History Strategies, and Behavioral Control of the COVID Pandemic

Hui Jing Lu  1 , Xin Rui Wang  2 , Yuan Yuan Liu  2 , Lei Chang  2
Affiliations

Disease Prevalence and Fatality, Life History Strategies, and Behavioral Control of the COVID Pandemic

Hui Jing Lu et al. Evol Psychol Sci. 2022.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caught the world by surprise and raised many questions. One of the questions is whether infectious diseases indeed drive fast life history (LH) as the extent research suggests. This paper challenges this assumption and raises a different perspective. We argue that infectious diseases enact either slower or faster LH strategies and the related disease control behavior depending on disease severity. We tested and supported the theorization based on a sample of 662 adult residents drawn from all 32 provinces and administrative regions of mainland China. The findings help to broaden LH perspectives and to better understand unusual social phenomena arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Fast and slow life history strategies; Intrinsic and extrinsic mortality; Prevalence and fatality of infectious diseases.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of InterestThe authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Simple slopes and 95% confidence bands of regression of slow LH strategy on the prevalence of infectious diseases at 1 SD above (A) and 1 SD below (B) the mean of fatality of infectious diseases
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Simple slopes and 95% confidence bands of regression of COVID-19 behavioral control on the prevalence of infectious diseases at 1 SD above (A) and 1 SD below (B) the mean of fatality of infectious diseases
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Akesson, J., Ashworth-Hayes, S., Hahn, R., Metcalfe, R. D., & Rasooly, I. (2020). Fatalism, beliefs, and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic (No. w27245). National Bureau of Economic Research. 10.3386/w27245 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alexander, R. D. (1990). How did humans evolve? reflections on the uniquely unique species. Museum of Zoology Special Publication No. 1. 1–38. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan.
    1. Anderson RM, Heesterbeek H, Klinkenberg D, Hollingsworth TD. How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? The Lancet. 2020;395:931–934. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30567-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barber I, Dingemanse NJ. Parasitism and the evolutionary ecology of animal personality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2010;365(1560):4077–4088. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0182. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Behringer DC, Butler MJ, Shields JD. Avoidance of disease by social lobsters. Nature. 2006;441(7092):421–421. doi: 10.1038/441421a. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources