The pandemic may have altered your personality
From rethinking workspaces to how we socialize, every part of our lives has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent study shows the pandemic could even have changed our personality.
The most widely used model to determine personality is the Five Factor Model, which determines one’s tendency toward extraversion, openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness.
Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the study found there were small but significant declines in openness, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness compared to personality traits measured before the pandemic. The researchers studied 7,109 participants across different ages and races and analyzed their personalities before and during the pandemic.
Among all subgroups, younger adults reported the most change to their personality. The study notes that as people age, our personalities decline in neuroticism and increase in agreeableness and conscientiousness. However, compared to pre-pandemic personality results, the opposite occurred in young adults.
This is because “all the normal things that younger adults are supposed to do were disrupted: school, socializing, work,” study author Angelina Sutin told NPR. Additionally, compared to young adults, older adults were “in a much more stable place in general,” she said.
Although small, the changes in personality could result in greater effects on young adults. The study notes that personalities are associated with certain outcomes. For example, people with higher levels of conscientiousness might achieve more education, or those with higher levels of neuroticism might engage in high-risk behaviors. The study notes there’s a potential for these changes to ripple into adulthood, but further research needs to be conducted before reaching a conclusion.
While it is largely believed that personality remains stable throughout one’s life, research points to the contrary.
“There’s quite a lot of evidence in the last couple of decades that personality is something that’s dynamic, changeable, malleable, and that there are a lot of different factors that influence that change,” said Brian Haas, associate professor of behavioral and brain sciences at the University of Georgia. Haas is not affiliated with the study. “People express their personality differently according to different contexts and situations. So, there’s a growing consensus in the field of personality research that this notion of personality being really enduring and concrete is not really the case.”
The study found that Latino individuals had the greatest change in personality compared to other races. Latino participants reported to have declines in agreeableness earlier compared to non-Latino participants, and they did not decrease in neuroticism. The study speculates this difference might be because Latino participants experienced greater stressors from working on the front lines and faced an increased risk to COVID-19.
Changes in personality can affect health outcomes. Previous studies have indicated increases in conscientiousness and extraversion predicted better health, whereas higher levels of agreeableness and neuroticism had poorer health outcomes.
“In the United States, people that change their personality tend to exhibit lower amounts of well-being and life satisfaction as compared to those that do not change their personality,” Haas said. “So personality change in general corresponds to a decrease in well-being.”