A study on the effect of the corona shows that young people are more likely to be stressed and less trusting. So say American researchers. The researchers will continue to monitor to see if the personality changes are temporary or more permanent
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic may have been so profound that it changed people’s personalities, according to new research. In the past, psychologists were unable to find a connection between collective stressful events, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, and personality change. However, it seems that something in the experiences people have had with Corona, due to the great social isolation, has affected many people.
“Young people tend to be more stressed, less cooperative and less trusting, and less restrained and responsible,” according to the authors of the study, led by Prof. Angelina Sutin from the College of Medicine at Florida State University in the USA.
Covid might have changed people’s personalities, study suggests https://t.co/b55cifR7D6
— The Guardian (@guardian) September 28, 2022
Sutin and her colleagues examined 7,109 people enrolled in the online study Understanding America at different times before and during the pandemic. Participants were given a widely used personality test that measures five traits – neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
The participants, aged 18 to 109, passed the tests before the epidemic, and at an earlier and later stage in the epidemic, with an average of three tests per participant. During the first phase of the pandemic (March to December 2020), personality was relatively stable, with only a small decrease in neuroticism compared to pre-pandemic. Then the personality changed.
“While the pandemic has been stressful for everyone, it has disrupted the normative tasks of younger people, such as going to school and transitioning to the labor market, and relationships with people,” Soutine said. “It’s speculative because we didn’t measure the reasons for the change, but it’s possible that this disruption affected younger people more because these tasks are very important for this age group.” The researchers will continue to monitor to see if the personality changes are temporary or more permanent.