HEXACO Traits, Big Five Traits, and COVID-19

Abstract

Trait research on health has primarily focused on chronic diseases, and those findings may not generalize to acute infectious diseases. In the current study, I analyze the correlations between personality traits and attitudes toward COVID-19. Data were collected at the onset of the U.S. epidemic, when COVID-19 was salient to the public. Questionnaires were administered to 172 undergraduates at a public university. These questionnaires measured seven attitudes toward COVID-19, personal risk, and public health. HEXACO trait data had already been collected at this time from all participants, and Big Five data had been collected from a subset of 100 participants. The findings suggest that there are weak-to-moderate correlations but no strong correlations between Big Five traits, HEXACO traits, and attitudes. Conscientiousness was associated with greater trust, and openness with less trust in U.S. and European governments’ preparedness for future epidemics. Openness was also associated with less fear of getting infected after being exposed to a person who had or was exposed to COVID-19. The generalizability of these results is low, but this information may be useful for setting priors in Bayesian statistics for future studies. The findings also pertain to the convergent validity of HEXACO and Big Five trait models.

Antecedents of Individuals’ Concerns Regarding Hospital Hygiene and Surgery Postponement During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional, Web-Based Survey Study

“…Apart from state anxiety, none of the other hypothesized predictors (eg, risk-taking behaviors) or personality factors (eg, agreeableness or openness) had any significant association with affective reactions or anticipated behaviors. This is contradictory to the recent findings of Martin [ 31 ], who found that agreeableness was related to the perceived severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and openness was related to low levels of anxiety with regard to contracting COVID-19. Although previous studies have suggested that individuals with high levels of neuroticism exhibit pronounced negative reactions to stressful events [ 32 ], our findings show that neuroticism was not associated with anticipated behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Aversive personality and COVID-19: A first review and meta-analysis

“…The second category of COVID-19 related outcomes focuses on perception of measures aimed at containing the spread of the virus (e.g., Martin, 2020). This category encompasses, among others, perceived protective value of guidelines aimed at reducing the spread of the virus (e.g., Leder et al, 2020) and trust in governmental recommendations (e.g., Modersitzki et al, 2020).…”

“…Indeed, given that health-related behaviors can be considered a prosocial act by being beneficial for societies at large, studies investigating the relations between aversive traits and COVID-19 related outcomes have often focused on health-related behaviors (e.g., Columbus, 2020;Triberti et al, 2021). Such behaviors include, for instance, adherence to healthrelated governmental/scientific guidelines (e.g., Modersitzki et al, 2020), social distancing (Zettler, Schild, et al, 2020), and willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 (e.g., Martin, 2020; which is especially relevant since the introduction of several safe and effective vaccines; WHO, 2021a). The studies mentioned above often find that people with higher aversive trait levels are less willing to engage in health-related behaviors and to follow guidelines promoted by health authorities (e.g., Leder et al, 2020;Modersitzki et al, 2020).…”

Adherence to Covid-19 Mitigation Measures in Slovenia: The Role of Sociodemographic and Personality Factors

“…They tend to comprehend and follow medical advice and engage in more health promoting and less health risk behaviors (Beier & Ackerman, 2003), however, they may also show propensity to risky sexual behaviors and drug abuse (Flory et al, 2002;Vollrath et al, 1999). Regarding the relationship between openness and COVID-19 guideline adherence, existing studies reported mixed results (Abdelrahman, 2020;Aschwanden et al, 2020;Bogg & Milad, 2020;Blagov, 2020;Chen et al, 2020;Krupić et al, 2020;Martin, 2020;Stadler et al, 2020).…”