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In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage

Extroverts may enjoy lower mortality than introverts under normal circumstances, but the relationship may be different during an airborne pandemic when social contact can be deadly. We used data for midlife Americans surveyed in 1995–96 with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2020 to investiga...

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Autores principales: Glei, Dana A., Weinstein, Maxine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9164451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35665000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.24.22275508
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author Glei, Dana A.
Weinstein, Maxine
author_facet Glei, Dana A.
Weinstein, Maxine
author_sort Glei, Dana A.
collection PubMed
description Extroverts may enjoy lower mortality than introverts under normal circumstances, but the relationship may be different during an airborne pandemic when social contact can be deadly. We used data for midlife Americans surveyed in 1995–96 with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2020 to investigate whether the association between extroversion and mortality changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that excess mortality during the pandemic will be greater for extroverts than for introverts. Results were based on a Cox model estimating age-specific mortality controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, the period trend in mortality, and an additional indicator for the pandemic period (Mar-Dec 2020). We interacted extroversion with the pandemic indicator to test whether the relationship differed between prepandemic and pandemic periods. Prior to the pandemic, extroversion was associated with somewhat lower mortality (HR=0.93 per SD, 95% CI 0.88–0.97), but the relationship reversed during the pandemic: extroverted individuals appeared to suffer higher mortality than their introverted counterparts, although the effect was not significant (HR=1.20 per SD, 95% CI 0.93–1.54). Extroversion was associated with greater pandemic-related excess mortality (HR=1.20/0.93=1.29 per SD, 95% CI 1.00–1.67). Compared with someone who scored at the mean level of extroversion, mortality rates prior to the pandemic were 10% lower for a person who was very extroverted (i.e., top 12% of the sample at Wave 1), while they were 12% higher for someone who was very introverted (i.e., 11(th) percentile). In contrast, mortality rates during the pandemic appeared to be higher for very extroverted individuals (HR=1.15, 95% CI 0.77–1.71) and lower for those who were very introverted (HR=0.70, 95% CI 0.43–1.14) although the difference was not significant because of limited statistical power. In sum, the slight mortality advantage enjoyed by extroverts prior to the pandemic disappeared during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It remains to be seen whether that pattern continued into 2021–22. We suspect that the mortality benefit of introversion during the pandemic is largely a result of reduced exposure to the risk of infection, but it may also derive in part from the ability of introverts to adapt more easily to reduced social interaction without engaging in self-destructive behavior (e.g., drug and alcohol abuse). Introverts have been training for a pandemic their whole lives.
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spelling pubmed-91644512022-06-05 In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage Glei, Dana A. Weinstein, Maxine medRxiv Article Extroverts may enjoy lower mortality than introverts under normal circumstances, but the relationship may be different during an airborne pandemic when social contact can be deadly. We used data for midlife Americans surveyed in 1995–96 with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2020 to investigate whether the association between extroversion and mortality changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that excess mortality during the pandemic will be greater for extroverts than for introverts. Results were based on a Cox model estimating age-specific mortality controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, the period trend in mortality, and an additional indicator for the pandemic period (Mar-Dec 2020). We interacted extroversion with the pandemic indicator to test whether the relationship differed between prepandemic and pandemic periods. Prior to the pandemic, extroversion was associated with somewhat lower mortality (HR=0.93 per SD, 95% CI 0.88–0.97), but the relationship reversed during the pandemic: extroverted individuals appeared to suffer higher mortality than their introverted counterparts, although the effect was not significant (HR=1.20 per SD, 95% CI 0.93–1.54). Extroversion was associated with greater pandemic-related excess mortality (HR=1.20/0.93=1.29 per SD, 95% CI 1.00–1.67). Compared with someone who scored at the mean level of extroversion, mortality rates prior to the pandemic were 10% lower for a person who was very extroverted (i.e., top 12% of the sample at Wave 1), while they were 12% higher for someone who was very introverted (i.e., 11(th) percentile). In contrast, mortality rates during the pandemic appeared to be higher for very extroverted individuals (HR=1.15, 95% CI 0.77–1.71) and lower for those who were very introverted (HR=0.70, 95% CI 0.43–1.14) although the difference was not significant because of limited statistical power. In sum, the slight mortality advantage enjoyed by extroverts prior to the pandemic disappeared during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It remains to be seen whether that pattern continued into 2021–22. We suspect that the mortality benefit of introversion during the pandemic is largely a result of reduced exposure to the risk of infection, but it may also derive in part from the ability of introverts to adapt more easily to reduced social interaction without engaging in self-destructive behavior (e.g., drug and alcohol abuse). Introverts have been training for a pandemic their whole lives. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2022-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9164451/ /pubmed/35665000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.24.22275508 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) , which allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
spellingShingle Article
Glei, Dana A.
Weinstein, Maxine
In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage
title In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage
title_full In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage
title_fullStr In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage
title_full_unstemmed In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage
title_short In the Midst of a Pandemic, Introverts May Have a Mortality Advantage
title_sort in the midst of a pandemic, introverts may have a mortality advantage
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9164451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35665000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.24.22275508
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