Is Country-Level Extraversion Associated with the Number of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths?

Yohsuke Ohtsubo,Fubei Lyu

doi:10.5178/lebs.2021.88

Abstract

An evolutionary explanation of between-country variation in extraversion assumes that it is more adaptive in the absence of pathogens but less adaptive in pathogen-prevalent environments. We attempted to test this assumption by correlating country-level extraversion scores and the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. There are at least five country-level extraversion scores available, three of which were significantly correlated with the number of COVID-19 cases and two of which were significantly correlated with the number of COVID-19 deaths. This apparent partial support for the assumption is puzzling because the validity of country-level extraversion scores was low. Brief numerical simulations suggest that a statistical artefact due to combining two mutually non-independent subgroups (European/American countries and African/Asian countries) may account for the observed country-level correlations.

Highlights

One of the dominant views on such individual differences is the five-factor model of personality (Digman, 1990), which posits that human individual differences can be represented by five mutually independent factors: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience
This study intended to test the hypothesis that countrylevel extraversion is correlated with the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths
One possible explanation for this partial support was that the “true” country-level extraversion is so highly correlated with the COVID-19 variables that even less valid measures of extraversion would be correlated with the COVID-19 variables

Summary

Introduction

Schaller and Murray (2008) showed that the region-level historical pathogen prevalence is negatively correlated with country-level extraversion (r = −.26 to −.67) and openness to experience (r = −.24 to −.59). Both extraversion and openness to experience motivate people to interact with others (in the case of openness, possibly with foreigners), conferring fitness benefits by expanding social networks (including mating partners). A meta-analytic review showed that extraversion and openness to experience were negatively associated with disease avoidance traits, such as disgust sensitivity and germ aversion (Oosterhoff et al, 2018). In pathogen-prevalent environments, the beneficial effects of gregariousness may be outweighed by the heightened risk of contracting infectious diseases (see Nettle, 2005)

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Conclusion