Risk-taking, resilience, and state anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic: a coming of (old) age story

Jim McCleskey, Dritjon Gruda*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

48 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented hostile psychological environment for individuals. Against the backdrop of this exogenous shock and applying a Cumulative Prospect Theory framework, we examined a relationship between risk-taking, trait resilience, and state anxiety, wherein age moderates the relationship between trait resilience and risk-taking, on state anxiety during the pandemic. We assess risk-taking using a behavioral measure and assess trait anxiety, big five personality traits, and other demographic factors in a sample of 515 individuals in the United States. Regression analysis revealed that age moderates the relationship between risk-taking and state anxiety and that highly resilient, risk-tolerant individuals experience lower state anxiety than less resilient risk-averse individuals. In contrast, older, more resilient, risk-averse individuals experience lower state anxiety than their younger, more resilient, risk-averse counterparts. Study limitations are noted, and additional research is suggested.
Original languageEnglish
Article number110485
Number of pages6
JournalPersonality and Individual Differences
Volume170
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Feb 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Age
  • Anxiety
  • COVID-19
  • Resilience
  • Risk-taking

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