Did our personalities change during the pandemic?
While we might think our personality won’t change that easily, it turns out that might not be the case after a new study reported measurable changes following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study, published in the journal PLOS One, found that the personalities of people they surveyed before and after the pandemic changed - and that several particular traits were affected.
A total of 7,109 people, ranging from 18 to 109 years old, took part in the Understanding America Study, which saw them take surveys before the pandemic, in 2020, and between 2021-2022.
They found that extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness declined when they compared results from 2021-2022 and pre-pandemic, with younger adults seeming particularly affected.
Interestingly, the researchers reported that levels of neuroticism declined significantly in 2020, and that older adults showed the largest change in this trait.
“There was limited personality change early in the pandemic but striking changes starting in 2021,” they write.
“Of most note, the personality of young adults changed the most, with marked increases in neuroticism and declines in agreeableness and conscientiousness. That is, younger adults became moodier and more prone to stress, less cooperative and trusting, and less restrained and responsible.”
They concluded that, if these changes are enduring, stressful events that affect a wider population could slightly change the trajectory of our personalities over time.
But, they stress that other significant nationwide events were also occurring during this period, such as the highly publicised death of George Floyd and resulting protests, and the January 6th Capitol riots.
With most of the changes to our personalities occurring while we are adolescents and young adults, it’s not surprising that the impact of the pandemic was seen most strongly in younger people.
Even though previous research has indicated that our personalities stabilise around the age of 30, the researchers found similar disruptions to personality among middle-aged participants that were absent in the oldest participants. They argue that this could be due to greater malleability of personality during middle age or because of different stressors and strains that this age group experienced in comparison to older adults.
Why this matters
We like to think our personality is who we are, and certain traits are even associated with our health and trajectory of our life.
Previous studies have found that people who are more conscientious have a lower risk of dementia, develop fewer chronic illnesses, and tend to achieve more in education, while a higher level of neuroticism is a risk factor for mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.
“It is especially worrying that the largest changes in these two traits were among younger adults, as the implications of these changes may ripple throughout their adult lives,” the authors write.
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