Cargando…

In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage

PURPOSE: We investigated whether the relationship between extroversion and mortality changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Midlife Americans were surveyed in 1995–96 with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2020. We used a Cox model to estimate age-specific mortality controlling for se...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Glei, Dana A., Weinstein, Maxine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9708106/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36575676
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dialog.2022.100087
_version_ 1784840849138384896
author Glei, Dana A.
Weinstein, Maxine
author_facet Glei, Dana A.
Weinstein, Maxine
author_sort Glei, Dana A.
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: We investigated whether the relationship between extroversion and mortality changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Midlife Americans were surveyed in 1995–96 with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2020. We used a Cox model to estimate age-specific mortality controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, the period trend in mortality, an indicator for the pandemic period (Mar-Dec 2020), extroversion, and an interaction between extroversion and the pandemic indicator. RESULTS: 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. Extroversion was associated with greater pandemic-related excess mortality (HR = 1.29 per SD, 95% CI 1.002–1.67). That is, compared with persons who were more introverted, those who were highly extroverted suffered a bigger increase in mortality during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic mortality levels. CONCLUSIONS: The slight mortality advantage enjoyed by more extroverted Americans prior to the pandemic disappeared during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 more introverted individuals to adapt more easily to reduced social interaction without engaging in self-destructive behavior (e.g., drug and alcohol abuse).
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9708106
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-97081062022-11-30 In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage Glei, Dana A. Weinstein, Maxine Dialogues Health Article PURPOSE: We investigated whether the relationship between extroversion and mortality changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Midlife Americans were surveyed in 1995–96 with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2020. We used a Cox model to estimate age-specific mortality controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, the period trend in mortality, an indicator for the pandemic period (Mar-Dec 2020), extroversion, and an interaction between extroversion and the pandemic indicator. RESULTS: 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. Extroversion was associated with greater pandemic-related excess mortality (HR = 1.29 per SD, 95% CI 1.002–1.67). That is, compared with persons who were more introverted, those who were highly extroverted suffered a bigger increase in mortality during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic mortality levels. CONCLUSIONS: The slight mortality advantage enjoyed by more extroverted Americans prior to the pandemic disappeared during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 more introverted individuals to adapt more easily to reduced social interaction without engaging in self-destructive behavior (e.g., drug and alcohol abuse). The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. 2023-12 2022-11-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9708106/ /pubmed/36575676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dialog.2022.100087 Text en © 2022 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Glei, Dana A.
Weinstein, Maxine
In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage
title In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage
title_full In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage
title_fullStr In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage
title_full_unstemmed In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage
title_short In the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage
title_sort in the midst of a pandemic, more introverted individuals may have a mortality advantage
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9708106/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36575676
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dialog.2022.100087
work_keys_str_mv AT gleidanaa inthemidstofapandemicmoreintrovertedindividualsmayhaveamortalityadvantage
AT weinsteinmaxine inthemidstofapandemicmoreintrovertedindividualsmayhaveamortalityadvantage