Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, The Pennsylvania State University, United States.
Penn State Altoona, United States.
J Psychiatr Res. 2018 Nov;106:82-90. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2018.10.002. Epub 2018 Oct 3.
Although recent research has begun to examine the impact of elevated anxiety on evolutionary fitness, no prior research has examined anxiety across a continuum. Such research is important as the effect of traits across a continuum on fertility hold important implications for the levels and distribution of the traits in later generations.
In a three-generational sample (N = 2657) the linear and quadratic relationship between anxiety and the number of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren 15 years later was examined.
The findings suggested that anxiety had a positive quadratic relationship with the number of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren 15 years later. These relationships were not significantly moderated by sex. Moreover, most of the variance between anxiety and the number of great-grandchildren was explained by anxiety's influence on the number of children and grandchildren, as opposed to anxiety having an independent direct impact on the number of great-grandchildren.
These findings suggest that extreme values from the mean anxiety are associated with increased evolutionary fitness within the modern environment.
尽管最近的研究开始探讨焦虑水平升高对进化适应性的影响，但尚无研究探讨连续体上的焦虑。此类研究很重要，因为连续体上的特征对生育能力的影响对后代中特征的水平和分布具有重要意义。
在一个三代样本（N=2657）中，研究了焦虑与 15 年后孩子、孙辈和曾孙辈数量之间的线性和二次关系。
研究结果表明，焦虑与 15 年后孩子、孙辈和曾孙辈的数量呈正二次关系。这些关系不受性别的显著调节。此外，焦虑与曾孙辈数量之间的大部分差异可以用焦虑对孩子和孙辈数量的影响来解释，而不是焦虑对曾孙辈数量有独立的直接影响。
这些发现表明，在现代环境中，均值焦虑的极端值与进化适应性的提高有关。
