The global COVID-19 pandemic acted as an inadvertent stress test, providing a unique opportunity to explore the diverse ways individuals’ personalities influenced their responses to lockdowns and social restrictions, subsequently impacting mental health outcomes. Insights gained from this challenging period hold the potential to shape more targeted and effective mental health interventions.
Numerous studies conducted during the pandemic, including those by Proto and Zhang (2021) in the UK and Zhang et al. (2023) in China, have delved into the interplay between personality traits and mental health outcomes in the face of adversity.
Surprisingly, research findings suggest that individuals with a more open personality faced greater mental health challenges during the pandemic, a trend observed in both the UK and China. Openness, indicative of a preference for exploration and new experiences, manifested as vulnerability during these trying times.
Analysis of data from the China Family Panel Studies, a representative survey, reveals that in China, a two-standard deviation difference in openness corresponds to a notable increase in symptoms of depression, as measured by a 0.1 uptick on the eight-item Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Similarly, in the UK, a two-standard deviation increase in openness was associated with an average rise of 0.46 symptoms on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), as evidenced by data from Understanding Society.
Both the CES-D and GHQ-12 are widely accepted as reliable indicators of mental health pathologies, relying on self-reported assessments of typical symptoms associated with mental health challenges.
A surprising revelation emerges as the data indicate that, contrary to expectations, possessing a more neurotic personality did not necessarily correlate with worse mental health outcomes in the UK. Strikingly, in China, a neurotic personality appeared to mitigate the impact on mental health.
Moreover, in the UK, a higher level of conscientiousness exhibited a positive effect on mental health, while greater extroversion had a negative impact. Intriguingly, these traits showed no discernible effect in China. These cross-cultural variations in how personality traits influenced mental health outcomes during the pandemic warrant further investigation to deepen our understanding of these nuances.
