No time to slow down: Time poverty predicts fast life history strategy via dissatisfaction of basic psychological needs

Abstract

Resource scarcity was found to affect individuals' life history strategy development, but mainly from the perspective of tangible material resources. Using a three-wave longitudinal design, we investigated the link between intangible time resource scarcity (i.e., time poverty) and life history strategy, and whether basic psychological need satisfaction was the key mediator of the relationship between them. A total of 687 Chinese college students were surveyed three times during one semester with six-week intervals. Results of cross-lagged panel models suggested that high levels of perceived time poverty would lead to frustration in satisfying individuals' basic psychological needs, especially in fulfilling their competence need (rather than autonomy or relatedness), thus accelerate individuals' (fast) life history strategies. This study disentangled the differential mediating roles of different psychological needs satisfaction (i.e., autonomy, competence, relatedness) in these longitudinal associations, highlighting how intangible resource-scarce environment is linked with life history strategy. The current findings provide valuable information to inform interventions aiming to buffer the potentially detrimental effects of time poverty.