The Relationship Between Big Five Personality Traits and COVID-19 Guideline Compliance
Disciplines
Personality and Social Contexts
Abstract (300 words maximum)
The COVID-19 pandemic has remained a major threat to public health throughout 2020. Healthcare professionals and agencies, including the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have provided explicit guidelines to mitigate the spread of the disease. In light of this, researchers have sought to understand how psychological factors impact compliance with these guidelines. One line of inquiry has explored the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and compliance with COVID-19. For instance, Carvalho et al. (2020) found that extroversion was associated with violations of social distancing guidelines, whereas conscientiousness was associated with compliance with social distancing and handwashing directives in Brazil. In addition, Qian and Yahara (2020) found that neuroticism was positively correlated with preventative behavior. While this research has begun to shed light on the link between the Big Five traits and COVID-19 guideline compliance, the majority of the research has been conducted in Asia and South America, leaving a scarcity of such studies in the United States.
Our research seeks to fill this gap by examining the relationship between the Big Five personality traits of students in the southeastern United States and CDC and campus-specific COVID-19 guideline compliance. Data has been collected from a university-managed subject pool, and students responded to online surveys about their Big Five traits and COVID-19 guideline compliance. It is hypothesized that high conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism will be associated with complying to COVID-19 guidelines, whereas low conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism will be associated with non-compliance. The results may highlight the role of personality as a spreader of the COVID-19 virus.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - Psychological Science
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Ordene Edwards
The Relationship Between Big Five Personality Traits and COVID-19 Guideline Compliance
The COVID-19 pandemic has remained a major threat to public health throughout 2020. Healthcare professionals and agencies, including the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have provided explicit guidelines to mitigate the spread of the disease. In light of this, researchers have sought to understand how psychological factors impact compliance with these guidelines. One line of inquiry has explored the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and compliance with COVID-19. For instance, Carvalho et al. (2020) found that extroversion was associated with violations of social distancing guidelines, whereas conscientiousness was associated with compliance with social distancing and handwashing directives in Brazil. In addition, Qian and Yahara (2020) found that neuroticism was positively correlated with preventative behavior. While this research has begun to shed light on the link between the Big Five traits and COVID-19 guideline compliance, the majority of the research has been conducted in Asia and South America, leaving a scarcity of such studies in the United States.
Our research seeks to fill this gap by examining the relationship between the Big Five personality traits of students in the southeastern United States and CDC and campus-specific COVID-19 guideline compliance. Data has been collected from a university-managed subject pool, and students responded to online surveys about their Big Five traits and COVID-19 guideline compliance. It is hypothesized that high conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism will be associated with complying to COVID-19 guidelines, whereas low conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism will be associated with non-compliance. The results may highlight the role of personality as a spreader of the COVID-19 virus.