Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
891221 | Personality and Individual Differences | 2012 | 4 Pages |
Worrying is generally perceived to be an undesirable mental state. An evolutionary approach suggests, however, despite the potential distress, worry may function to focus individuals’ attention on evolutionarily-relevant tasks. In the current study (N = 193), we demonstrated that participants’ primary worries were focused within domains central to reproductive success and mate-value. Furthermore, mating strategy predicted worries in the domains of social status and mating. Neuroticism, as an individual difference reflecting vigilance to threats, was correlated with worry about fitness-relevant but not fitness-irrelevant domains. The current study documents the first domain-specific assessment of worries and complements this analysis with intriguing individual difference predictors of worry.
► Assessed worries across domains that were fitness-relevant or fitness-irrelevant. ► Participants worried more about fitness-relevant domains. ► Mating strategy predicted worries in mating and status domains. ► Neuroticism was correlated with worry about fitness-relevant, but not irrelevant domains. ► The first documentation of domain-specific worries.