Personalities don't usually change quickly but they may have during the pandemic

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2022-10-05 22:30:19

The global coronavirus pandemic disrupted almost everything about our lives, from how we work and go to school, to how we socialize (Zoom happy hours, anyone?!), and ultimately strained trust in many of the overarching systems we depend on, from health care to government.

Typically, major personality traits remain fairly stable throughout life, with most change happening in young adulthood or when stressful personal life events occur. It's rare to see population-wide personality shifts, even after stressful events, but in a new study in the journal PLOS One, psychologists found just that in the wake of the pandemic.

The researchers had previously found a small, counterintuitive change in personality early in the pandemic: They found a decrease in neuroticism, the personality trait associated with stress and negative emotions. In the current study, they were curious if they would find different personality changes in the second and third year of the pandemic.

"And we did. There was a completely different pattern of change," says study author Angelina Sutin, an assistant professor of behavioral sciences and social medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine.

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