Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior in Pandemics

Dear Colleague,

Understanding human nature is one of the central goals of behavioral and cognitive sciences, as well as philosophy, anthropology, sociology and linguistics. Evolutionary psychology provides its own vision of human nature as a universal set of evolved psychological adaptations to solving problems in the ancestral environment. It is of special interest how such emotional and cognitive adaptations enable humans to cope with current ecological and social problems. The goal of this issue is to provide an evolutionary sound understanding of human behavior in situations of pandemics, particularly during COVID-19. In line with the primary focus of evolutionary psychology on the “why” question, it is expected that participating authors will discuss different aspects of human behavior and emotional reactions to stressful situations and provide explanations in the light of evolutionary psychological approaches. The following questions are of special interest: Whether ecology, particularly familiarity with pathogens in everyday life, influences personal fear and stress reaction towards pandemics; why cooperation and altruism towards relatives and friends are increasing during pandemics; why the fear of being infected influences attitudes toward strangers; why and if a recent lockdown affected relations in couples; whether personality traits influence willingness to help others in the period of pandemics; whether cooperation with others improves individual wellbeing in the time of pandemics. Discussing cultural differences in reaction to pathogen threat from the perspective of specific group adaptations, revealing age and sex differences in reaction to pandemics and testing pathogen threat effects on social distancing will be within the scope of this issue as well.

Prof. Marina Butovskaya
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.