Summary: A study of personality traits during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic found only minor shifts, with a small decline in neuroticism.
Source: PLOS
Researchers report that most adults showed little change in the “Big Five” personality traits during the initial weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. Angelina Sutin and colleagues at Florida State University College of Medicine describe these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE (August 6, 2020).
The Five Factor Model, commonly called the “Big Five,” includes extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. These personality dimensions are typically stable over time, but prior work indicates they can shift in response to significant life stressors or altered social conditions.
To examine whether the pandemic produced measurable personality change, the team surveyed a national sample of 2,137 adults. Participants completed assessments in early February 2020—before the outbreak became widespread in the U.S.—and again in mid-March 2020, during the period when public health guidelines and major behavioral changes were already taking effect.
The pre-post analysis showed that, overall, the five broad traits remained largely stable across this short interval. Contrary to the researchers’ initial predictions, average neuroticism scores declined slightly rather than increasing. The decline was most apparent on facets related to anxiety and depressive feelings. One interpretation the authors offer is that people may have attributed heightened worry or distress to the external circumstances of the pandemic rather than to enduring aspects of their personality, which in turn reduced self-reports of trait neuroticism.
The investigators also expected conscientiousness to rise, given widespread messaging about behaviors to limit viral spread (for example, staying home when sick or following hygiene recommendations). However, conscientiousness did not show a significant increase. The authors note that the pandemic altered the social meaning of some behaviors: an item previously interpreted as a sign of dutifulness—going to work despite feeling ill—may have come to reflect irresponsibility during COVID-19, and that shift in item meaning could affect measured scores for conscientiousness even when underlying tendencies remain stable.
These results suggest that personality can show short-term resilience even amid widespread disruption, though the report emphasizes caution. The observed changes were small and detected over just a few weeks; further research will be necessary to determine whether these shifts persist, grow, or reverse over longer periods. The authors recommend follow-up studies to track personality across later stages of the pandemic and to test whether other subgroups or longer exposures produce different patterns of change.
As the authors summarize: “The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted most aspects of our lives, from health to social relationships to economic security. Yet, this disruption had little effect on personality traits, which shows the resiliency of personality even to catastrophic events, at least in the short-term.” This cautious conclusion highlights both the surprising steadiness of dispositional traits and the importance of considering contextual effects on how people interpret questionnaire items.
Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01AG053297 to ARS. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
About this psychology and coronavirus research article
Source:
PLOS
Contacts:
Angelina Sutin – PLOS
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Original Research: Open access
“Change in five-factor model personality traits during the acute phase of the coronavirus pandemic” by Angelina R. Sutin, Martina Luchetti, Damaris Aschwanden, Ji Hyun Lee, Amanda A. Sesker, Jason E. Strickhouser, Yannick Stephan, Antonio Terracciano. PLOS ONE.
Abstract
Change in five-factor model personality traits during the acute phase of the coronavirus pandemic
The rapid spread of the coronavirus and the strategies to slow it disrupted many aspects of daily life, which could be reflected in psychological functioning. This study used a pre-post design to assess whether Five Factor Model personality traits changed during the acute phase of the outbreak in the United States. Participants (N = 2,137) were assessed in early February 2020 and again during the President’s “15 Days to Slow the Spread” guidelines in mid-March. Contrary to preregistered hypotheses, Neuroticism decreased across these six weeks, particularly on anxiety and depression facets, and Conscientiousness did not change. There was also evidence that rapid changes in social context altered the meaning of an item about attending work while sick: before COVID-19 it indexed conscientious duty, but during the pandemic it could reflect irresponsibility. Overall, the modest decline in Neuroticism suggests that acute feelings of anxiety and distress during the outbreak may have been attributed to the situation rather than to stable personality.