Psychological and behavioural responses to Coronavirus disease 2019: The role of personality

Abstract

This study examined the associations between personality traits and psychological and behavioural responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. Personality was assessed in January/February 2020 when the public was not aware of the spread of coronavirus in the USA. Participants were reassessed in late March 2020 with four sets of questions about the pandemic: concerns, precautions, preparatory behaviours, and duration estimates. The sample consisted of N = 2066 participants (mean age = 51.42; range = 18–98; 48.5% women). Regression models were used to analyse the data with age, gender, education, race, and ethnicity as covariates. Consistent with the preregistered hypotheses, higher neuroticism was related to more concerns and longer duration estimates related to COVID‐19, higher extraversion was related to shorter duration estimates, and higher conscientiousness was associated with more precautions. In contrast to the preregistered hypotheses, higher neuroticism was associated with fewer precautions and unrelated to preparatory behaviours. Age moderated several trait–response associations, suggesting that some of the responses were associated more strongly in older adults, a group at risk for complications of COVID‐19. For example, older adults high in conscientiousness prepared more. The present findings provide insights into how personality predicts concerns and behaviours related to the COVID‐19 pandemic. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology

Loneliness and Well-Being During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Associations with Personality and Emotion Regulation

“…Emotionally unstable individuals also have more dysfunctional interpersonal relationships and are less satisfied with their relationships (Vater and Schröder-Abé 2015). Among the five factors of personality, neuroticism has been demonstrated to be the strongest correlate for reduced well-being and enhanced loneliness (Albuquerque et al 2012;Buecker et al 2020), which has also been confirmed in recent Covid-19-related studies (Aschwanden et al 2020;Modersitzki et al 2020).…”

Psychological entitlement predicts noncompliance with the health guidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…This research adds to a growing body of work on how personality and individual differences predict compliance with health guidelines and other attitudes and behaviors during the pandemic (e.g., Aschwanden et al, 2020 ; Blagov, 2020 ; Nowak et al, 2020 ; Zajenkowski et al, 2020 ). 5 We studied entitlement in this paper because past research had identified a link between entitlement and ignoring instructions ( Zitek & Jordan, 2019 ), and because people have been quick to label those who are not following the guidelines as “entitled” (e.g., Weekman, 2020).…”

“…All individual compliance items were significantly correlated with entitlement except mask wearing (see Appendix B ). Other personality research has also revealed a different pattern of results for mask wearing as compared to other pandemic health guidelines ( Aschwanden et al, 2020 ; Shook et al, 2020 ).…”

Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Big Five Personality on Subjective and Psychological Well-Being

“…There is now also an emerging literature on the relationship between personality and people's response to the COVID 19 pandemic. Researchers have examined personality correlates of a wide range of variables including pathogen avoidance (Makhanova & Shepherd, 2020), economic anxiety (Mann, Krueger, & Vohs, 2020), compliance with government advice (De Coninck et al, 2020;Zajenkowski et al, 2020), safety behaviors (Aschwanden et al, 2020;Blagov, 2020;Carvalho, Pianowski, & Gonçalves, 2020), consumer stockpiling (Dammeyer, 2020;Garbe, Rau, & Toppe, 2020), and concerns about coronavirus (Bacon & Corr, 2020). There have also been several studies correlating personality with well-being during various phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., Jørgensen, Bor, Lindholt, & Petersen, 2020;Kroencke, Geukes, Utesch, Kuper, & Back, 2020;Michinov & Michinov, 2020;Modersitzki, Phan, Kuper, & Rauthmann, 2020;Qian & Yahara, 2020;Russo, Hanel, Altnickel, & van Berkel, 2020;Zajenkowski et al, 2020).…”

“…Despite an emerging literature on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on well-being (for reviews, see Sher, 2020;Xiong et al, 2020) and the effect of personality on people's response to the pandemic (e.g., Aschwanden et al, 2020;Bacon & Corr, 2020;Blagov, 2020;De Coninck, d'Haenens, & Matthijs, 2020;Krasavtseva, Kiseleva, Kasyan, & Pushkar, 2020;Peters et al, 2020;Zajenkowski, Jonason, Leniarska, & Kozakiewicz, 2020), many gaps in understanding remain. First, most studies examining the effect of COVID-19 on well-being are cross-sectional surveys conducted during the pandemic that lack a meaningful Pre-COVID comparison group.…”