Verified by 
Key points
- High agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism facilitate adherence with social distancing.
- Socially aversive “dark” traits like psychopathy are associated with less social distancing and increased willingness to infect others.
- People high in agreeableness find public health messages promoting social distancing appealing regardless of their content.
- People with “dark traits” find such messages unappealing, even messages stressing self-interest, like “keep yourself healthy.”
What sort of people are more likely to practice social distancing and other protective hygiene measures during the pandemic? A recent study (Blagov, 2020) aimed to answer this question by examining how personal traits affect health-related behavior as well as the appeal of different kinds of public health messages aimed at countering the spread of infection, based on the theory that people prefer and find more persuasive messages that match how they see themselves. In particular, the study aimed to find out whether a “self-centered” message would appeal to people with socially aversive “dark” traits. However, the results were not quite as expected.
Personality characteristics examined in the study included general traits from the Big Five model (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience), as well as dark triad traits of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. Among the Big Five traits, agreeableness (consideration for others and cooperation) and conscientiousness (self-discipline and compliance with rules) are most commonly associated with health behavior in general, as they are associated with adherence to social norms. Additionally, although neuroticism (emotional instability and worry) is usually associated with poorer mental health, it is also associated with avoiding perceived threats to one’s safety. Hence, these three traits were expected to be associated with compliance with social distancing. on the other hand, people high in extraversion (sociability and assertiveness) are likely to find social distancing a drag, as it makes it harder for them to go out and have a good time. Openness to experience (intellectual and artistic sophistication) is associated with higher intelligence and therefore might be expected to predict compliance with social distancing (although it did not in this study).
The dark triad traits of psychopathy (callous impulsive traits), Machiavellianism (manipulating others), and narcissism (inflated sense of self) are associated with selfish, antisocial behavior, so people high in these traits are likely to disregard social norms, including those related to social distancing. Psychopathy is considered the darkest of the dark traits and was assessed with two measures – the short dark triad scale, and a measure based on the triarchic model, which is based on the idea that psychopathy consists of a combination of boldness (fearlessness), meanness, and disinhibition (poor impulse control). However, as I have noted elsewhere, this model has been criticized because boldness has been found to be an adaptive trait that is largely unrelated to antisocial behavior (Sleep et al., 2019). Evidence suggests that meanness is the core feature of psychopathy, with disinhibition also playing a large role, while boldness is largely irrelevant. The results of Blagov’s study were largely consistent with this, as we shall see.
Personality traits and current and future health behavior
In the study, participants were asked to rate their current health behavior in terms of both social distancing and hygiene. They were also asked about intended future health behavior relevant to the pandemic, including venturous actions such as attending large social gatherings and having sex with new partners. As expected, they found that agreeableness and conscientiousness, and to a less extent neuroticism, were related to more current social distancing and hygiene, while extraversion was related to doing these less. Additionally, conscientiousness was related to less anticipated venturous behavior. Regarding the dark traits, the short measures of psychopathy and Machiavellianism, and the triarchic measures of meanness and disinhibition were related to less use of social distancing and hygiene behavior. However, boldness and narcissism were not related to current health behavior. On the other hand, boldness, meanness, and psychopathy were related to more anticipated venturous behavior.
In addition, participants in the study were asked to imagine a scenario in which they believed that they were carriers of COVID-19 and asked about whether they would perform various behaviors that could either protect or harm others (e.g., wearing a mask, shaking hands with people, and deliberately infecting others). People high in agreeableness reported that they would avoid doing things that could harm others and would try to protect them instead. Conversely, people who were apt to harm others tended to be high in meanness, disinhibition, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy; similarly, they were less likely to act to protect others (although psychopathy was not statistically significant in this case). Boldness was not related to either protecting or harming others.
What public health messages appeal to people with different traits?
The study also examined the appeal of five kinds of public health messages that were intended to be particularly relevant to people with self-centered, responsible, compassionate, avoidant, or sociable characteristics. Based on the theory that people prefer and find more persuasive messages that match how they see themselves, a self-centered message (“Keep yourself healthy!”) was expected to appeal most to people with dark traits, due to their selfishness; while a “responsible” message (“Take personal responsibility!”) would appeal to people high in conscientiousness and low in disinhibition; a “compassionate” message (“Help protect the vulnerable!”) would appeal to those high in agreeableness and conscientiousness but low in the dark traits; an “avoidant” message (“Avoid the disease!”) would appeal to those high in neuroticism and low in boldness, while a “sociable” message would appeal to those high in extraversion, boldness, and openness.
The results were not quite as expected. On average, people found all messages appealing, with the compassionate message having the highest rating and the sociable one the lowest. Additionally, higher agreeableness and neuroticism were associated with finding all messages appealing, while conscientiousness was associated with finding three of them (responsible, compassionate, and avoidant) appealing. Contrary to expectations, extraversion was not associated with finding the sociable message appealing, but with finding three of the other messages unappealing. Even more unexpectedly, none of the dark traits were associated with finding the self-centered message appealing – on the contrary it was unappealing to people high in meanness, disinhibition, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Not surprisingly, people high in meanness found all of the other messages unappealing, while people high in disinhibition, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy found the responsible and compassionate messages unappealing as well. Boldness, though, was not associated either positively or negatively with the appeal of any message.
Hence, the appeal of public health messages was related to personality traits, but not always in the particular ways that were expected. People high in dark traits tend to disregard health messages aimed at preventing the spread of the pandemic, so it would be helpful if there was some way to effectively appeal to them to change their behavior. Considering their selfish characteristics, Blagov’s study tested whether an appeal to “self-centered” motives might encourage them to change their behavior, but the effect seemed to be the opposite to that intended. A potential problem might be that a message to “Keep yourself healthy!” does not speak to what motivates people with dark traits, who are more focused on immediate self-gratification than health.
Disinhibition, for example, is associated with a whole host of behaviors that are not conducive to long-term health, such as smoking, alcohol, and drug use, not to mention fighting and criminal activity. Hence, appeals to keep healthy may not tap into their core selfish desires, which are more likely to focus on personal pleasure. On the other hand, keeping healthy is socially normative, which might explain why the so-called “self-centered” public health message was appealing to people high in agreeableness, who prefer to behave in socially acceptable ways. Hence, for a message to be appealing to people with socially aversive traits, it would probably need to tap into their core desires more directly, although finding such a message is likely to be difficult.
Perhaps if some really clever marketing person could come up with some way to make health behavior seem sexy and edgy, it might help (although don’t ask me how this could be done!).
References
Blagov, P. S. (2020). Adaptive and Dark Personality in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Predicting Health-Behavior Endorsement and the Appeal of Public-Health Messages. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1948550620936439. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620936439
Sleep, C. E., Weiss, B., Lynam, D. R., & Miller, J. D. (2019). An examination of the Triarchic Model of psychopathy’s nomological network: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 71, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2019.04.005.
