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Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs

While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an immediate risk to human life around the world, climate change poses an arguably greater—although less immediate—threat to our species’ survival. Within the framework of life-history theory (LHT), this pre-registered study investigated whether extrinsic ri...

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Autor principal: Gordon, David S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8253051/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34220614
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644600
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author Gordon, David S.
author_facet Gordon, David S.
author_sort Gordon, David S.
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description While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an immediate risk to human life around the world, climate change poses an arguably greater—although less immediate—threat to our species’ survival. Within the framework of life-history theory (LHT), this pre-registered study investigated whether extrinsic risk (i.e., external factors that pose a risk to an individual’s life, e.g., COVID-19) and existential risk (i.e., risks with outcomes that threaten the existence of humans as a species, e.g., climate change) had similar or different relationships with reproductive decision-making. A UK representative sample of 325 participants between 18 and 35 years of age was asked to indicate their ideal number of children, ideal age to start having children, and whether their desire for a child had recently changed. Participants were asked about their experiences of COVID-19 and given a series of scales with which to assess their beliefs about climate change. In support of LHT, the study found evidence that knowing people who had been hospitalized with or died of COVID-19 was associated with a greater ideal number of children. Conversely, there was no clear evidence of a relationship between climate change beliefs and reproductive decision-making. The repercussions for understanding how we interpret and respond to different forms of mortality risk are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-82530512021-07-03 Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs Gordon, David S. Front Psychol Psychology While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an immediate risk to human life around the world, climate change poses an arguably greater—although less immediate—threat to our species’ survival. Within the framework of life-history theory (LHT), this pre-registered study investigated whether extrinsic risk (i.e., external factors that pose a risk to an individual’s life, e.g., COVID-19) and existential risk (i.e., risks with outcomes that threaten the existence of humans as a species, e.g., climate change) had similar or different relationships with reproductive decision-making. A UK representative sample of 325 participants between 18 and 35 years of age was asked to indicate their ideal number of children, ideal age to start having children, and whether their desire for a child had recently changed. Participants were asked about their experiences of COVID-19 and given a series of scales with which to assess their beliefs about climate change. In support of LHT, the study found evidence that knowing people who had been hospitalized with or died of COVID-19 was associated with a greater ideal number of children. Conversely, there was no clear evidence of a relationship between climate change beliefs and reproductive decision-making. The repercussions for understanding how we interpret and respond to different forms of mortality risk are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8253051/ /pubmed/34220614 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644600 Text en Copyright © 2021 Gordon. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Gordon, David S.
Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs
title Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs
title_full Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs
title_fullStr Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs
title_full_unstemmed Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs
title_short Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs
title_sort extrinsic and existential mortality risk in reproductive decision-making: examining the effects of covid-19 experience and climate change beliefs
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8253051/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34220614
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644600
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