Researchers are linking changes in stress patterns amongst young adults to the COVID 19 pandemic that have ravaged the world since late 2019 till date. It is believed that the personality of young adults were altered by this horrible global pandemic, US researchers have reported.
WHAT WE KNOW
The COVID 19 had an impact that may take some years to discover. One of the grave impact of the pandemic is how it altered people’s personalities according to researchers.
Hitherto psychologists didn’t link collective stressful events as earthquakes or hurricanes and personality change. Nonetheless, the long effect of social isolation that came with the pandemic have made an impact on personality changes.
Prof. Angelina Sutin of Florida State University College of Medicine noted that young adults became moodier and more likely to be stressed, less cooperative, less trusting, less restrained and less responsible.
The research was conducted with the assessment of 7,109 personalities from people enrolled in the online understanding America study repeated various times before and during the pandemic.
Widely used personality test were administered, measuring five traits such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
The test was administered to people aged 18 to 109 in the pre-pandemic, early and later in the pandemic. There was an average of three test per participant.
The first phase of the pandemic March-December 2020, showed a relatively stable personality, a small decline in neuroticism compared to pre-pandemic. This is thought to be as the COVID increased feelings of anxiety and people ability to blame their own disposition.
By the second half of 2021-2022, the reduction in neuroticism had disappeared. The research suggest this was replaced by a reduction in extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientious compared to pre-pandemic personality test.
This changes were about one-tenth of standard deviation, the size of fluctuations seen over decade of life. This changes was noticed more in young adults, while older adults showed little change.
NOTABLE QUOTES
Prof Angelina Sutin of Florida State University College of Medicine, in a study noted:
“Younger adults became moodier and more prone to stress, less cooperative and trusting, and less restrained and responsible,”
“Although the pandemic was stressful for everyone, it disrupted the normative tasks of younger adulthood, such as school and the transition into the workforce and being sociable and developing relationships,”
“It is speculative because we did not measure reasons for the change, but this disruption may have had a larger impact on younger adults because these tasks are very important for this age group.”
Prof Wiebke Bleidorn, a psychologist at the University of Zurich, who was not involved in the research said,
“It’s interesting to see this average effect, despite the fact that people must deal with the things going on quite differently,”
“One interpretation is that not having the normal formative experiences put development on hold. It will be interesting to see if … these traits bounce back.”
TAKEAWAY
The world was plagued by the COVID 19 pandemic from late 2019-2012 when the lockdown were eased off.
Though the lockdown in most part of the world and it’s impact seems to have eased off, it may take some years to discover some of the negative social impact society will suffer as a result of this.
For example, at the beginning of 2020 to when the lockdown started in most part of the world, earlier March, many only thought of it as a simple health issue. Not many foresaw the economic and social upheaval that the pandemic could bring to the world.
Now months and years after, this research is showing it had an impact on large part of humanity than earlier thought. This effect on personality change may just be the beginning of more discoveries. Who knows many more impact we are yet to know?
