ABSTRACT

This study investigates from an evolutionary psychological perspective the relation between sleep quality and the type of living environment of 146 individuals from Transylvania (Romania). One of the main assumptions in Evolutionary Psychology is that the living conditions of people nowadays differ from the conditions experienced by our ancestors during the evolution of human species, i.e. the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness (EEA; Hagen, 2006). This environmental dissimilarity might have contributed to the development of several pathologies, including sleep disorders. Nowadays, such an environmental dissimilarity can be found between the rural and urban areas in several countries, including Romania. In the light of this assumption, we performed an exploratory study, in which the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to measure the subjective sleep quality of Romanian people inhabiting the rural environment (N=53) and of people inhabiting the urban environment (N=93). In average, the Romanian individuals reported a bad quality of sleep (i.e., average Global PSQI score > 5), regardless of the type of living environment. Several significant differences were found between the sleep quality measurements of the inhabitants of the rural and urban environments, such as Sleep Latency (rural > urban), Sleep Disturbancies (rural > urban) and Daytime Dysfunction (rural < urban).

KEYWORDS: subjective sleep quality, environment of evolutionary adaptiveness, daytime dysfunction.

PAGES:141-158