Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity for quantifying the impact of Five Factor Model personality domains (i.e. neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and COVID-related lifestyle changes on psychological distress. To examine these relationships, we designed and preregistered the present study (https://osf.io/qfw9h). We assessed a large, heterogeneous sample including undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff of a large, public, Midwestern university (n = 1055) to ascertain whether personality domains uniquely predicted distress in response to COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders. This was a three-panel study in which the same potential participant pools were invited to participate at each survey announcement. Data collection occurred between early March through late May 2020, from within days of local shelter-in-place order onset to within days of reaching 100,000 COVID-related deaths in the USA. Domain and distress scores were determined from self-reported ratings on the Big Five Inventory and the 21-Item Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales, respectively. Participants also reported personal experiences with six COVID-specific lifestyle impacts: insufficient outdoor or indoor living space, job insecurity, income insecurity, or taking care of or homeschooling school-aged children during working hours. Zero-order correlations revealed that all personality domains except openness had statistically significant correlations with distress, and all correlations were negative except for that of neuroticism. When entered simultaneously, neuroticism was the predominant risk factor of distress that held across all preregistered and exploratory analyses. Our expectation that extraversion would be negatively associated with distress was not supported broadly, while agreeableness was a unique potential risk factor (though this effect was mostly limited to exploratory analyses). The results especially highlight the link between employment and income uncertainty with psychological distress, while also identifying insufficient indoor and outdoor space as potential risk factors. We hope these findings inform future public health action and further emphasize the utility of personality trait models in general.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity for quantifying the impact of Five Factor Model personality domains and COVID-related lifestyle changes on psychological distress
Because all individuals were exposed to a substantial stressor at the same time, the pandemic provided a unique natural experiment for quantifying the impact of factors such as personality traits and lifestyle changes on distress
Some research into COVID-19 and personality traits has been conducted, these studies have not focused on the link between traits and distress during the pandemic, instead examining topics such as compliance with pandemic regulations or the possibility of personality change during the pandemic (e.g. Carvalho et al, 2020; Götz et al, 2020; Hardin et al, 2020; Sutin et al, 2020)
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity for quantifying the impact of Five Factor Model personality domains (i.e. neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and COVID-related lifestyle changes on psychological distress. To examine these relationships, we designed and preregistered the present study (https://osf.io/qfw9h). Quality of life declined for most people during the pandemic, within the confines of these stay-athome orders (Williams et al, 2020) These difficulties were potentially worsened by pandemic-related stressors such as social isolation, loss of income, not having a safe or comfortable home environment, or homeschooling children, as well as individuals or their loved ones having health conditions that could exacerbate COVID-19 risk (e.g., immunosuppression, asthma, chronic upper respiratory condition). Bipolar dimensions: neuroticism vs. emotional stability, extraversion vs. detachment, openness vs. closedness to one’s experience, agreeableness vs. antagonism, and conscientiousness vs. undependability
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