New research sheds light on the role of personality traits in reducing the spread of COVID-19. The findings, published in the Journal of Individual Differences, indicate that “dark” personality traits are associated with negative perceptions of mask wearing, while openness and agreeableness are associated with positive perceptions of mask wearing.
“Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought that face mask wearing would be an uncontroversial behavior like hand washing,” said study author Matt C. Howard, an associate professor in the Mitchell College of Business at the University of South Alabama. “After all, it is a relatively small behavior to protect others. I was therefore quite surprised when many people reacted strongly against mask wearing, and I immediately wanted to discover the nature and causes of these negative perceptions.”
He was particularly interested in the role of the Big Five and Dark Triad personality traits.
The Big Five personality traits are a widely recognized framework for describing human personality. These traits are: openness (The degree to which a person is open-minded, curious, imaginative, and creative), conscientiousness (the degree to which a person is organized, responsible, dependable, and self-disciplined), extraversion (the degree to which a person is outgoing, sociable, assertive, and energetic), agreeableness (the degree to which a person is kind, empathetic, cooperative, and helpful), and neuroticism (the degree to which a person is emotionally unstable, anxious, and prone to negative emotions).
The Dark Triad personality traits are a set of three related personality traits that are associated with a tendency towards antagonistic or harmful behaviors. These traits are: Machiavellianism (the degree to which a person is manipulative, deceitful, and willing to exploit others for their own gain), narcissism (the degree to which a person is self-centered, arrogant, and has an inflated sense of self-importance), and psychopathy (the degree to which a person lacks empathy and engages in impulsive and irresponsible behavior).
Howard used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform to recruit participants for his study, which began on June 25, 2020.
An initial sample of 567 individuals completed demographic questionnaires. One week later, 317 participants completed assessments of Big Five and Dark Triad personality traits. After another week, 251 participants participants completed the Face Mask Perceptions Scale, a psychological assessment that gauges justifications for not wearing face masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Items include “Wearing a face mask is too much of a hassle,” “Face masks look dumb,” and “I do not like blindly following suggestions.” Finally, during the fourth week of the study, 209 participants indicated how often they wore a mask in public.
“When tested together, conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism did not have notable relations with face mask perceptions or wearing; openness and the Dark Triad had significant relations with perceptions but not wearing; and agreeableness had significant relations with perceptions and wearing,” Howard told PsyPost. “Openness and agreeableness related to more favorable perceptions, and agreeableness also related to greater face mask wearing. The Dark Triad related to less favorable perceptions.”
In particular, Dark Triad traits were associated with doubts about the efficacy of masks, reduced access to masks, complaints about the inconvenience of masks, concerns about appearance, and feeling that masks hampered one’s independence. Because those high in the Dark Triad tend to be callous and unconcerned about the welfare of others, Howard had predicted these traits would be associated with less face mask wearing. However, there was only an indirect relationship between Dark Triad traits and mask wearing.
“I was surprised that the Dark Triad did not produce significant direct effects on face mask wearing,” he explained. “Instead, it was agreeableness that had direct effects on face mask wearing, likely due to its association with concern for others. So, it was not a disregard for others that negatively related to face mask wearing, but it was a concern for others that positively related to face mask wearing in the current article.”
Regarding the study’s limitations, Howard noted that “there are always caveats and questions to be addressed with any research study. Of course, different measures could be used, and larger sample sizes could be obtained. I would particularly be interested in whether an alternative model of personality, the HEXACO, would produce similar results.”
“Likewise, I am interested in why the present results about personality and face mask wearing were notably different to my prior results about personality and vaccination. They are both preventive behaviors; however, people may have stronger and different feelings about vaccination than face mask wearing, perhaps causing the results to differ.”
By studying COVID-19 related behaviors, psychologists can better understand how people are coping with the pandemic and what factors influence their behavior. This information can be used to develop effective interventions and strategies to help people manage their mental health during the pandemic. Additionally, understanding the psychological factors that affect adherence to public health guidelines, such as wearing masks and practicing social distancing, can help in the development of effective communication strategies to encourage compliance with these guidelines.
“As we move throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it is always interesting to study preventive behaviors – particularly face mask wearing and vaccination,” Howard said. “There are so many research questions that remain unanswered about both, and I think that novice and senior researchers alike can make large contributions to this research area. If any junior researchers are looking for a research area to study, this is certainly a domain with a lot to still discover.”
The study was titled: “Big Five, Dark Triad, and Face Masks: The Role of Personality in Reducing the Spread of COVID-19“.
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