The pandemic’s personality problem

The pandemic can change a whole generation’s personality, a new study shows. (Photo: Inquirer)

Be it fiction or real life, humans take character development very seriously. Everyone’s always striving to be better in some way. In these unprecedented times of ubiquitous mask wearing and bread baking, we would’ve assumed people got enough chances to work on themselves. This recent study published in PLOS (short for Public Library of Science) shows that we, as a society, might have only gotten worse.

More specifically, it’s younger people who have regressed. The study, following 7,109 Americans from 2020 to 2022, showed that the pandemic caused distinct changes among different age groups too. Among these findings, respondents below 30 showed the most significant change with higher than normal levels of neuroticism, or a tendency to see the world as distressing or unsafe as of 2022.

Neuroticism is just one trait off the Big Five inventory, a widely accepted model of studying personality. The four other dimensions of personality are extroversion (connecting with others), openness (creative thinking), agreeableness (being trusting), and conscientiousness (being organized, disciplined and responsible). To measure changes in these traits, researchers analyzed surveys from three time periods: once pre-pandemic before March 2020, once in the early lockdown period in 2020, and once either in 2021 or 2022. 

Back in 2020, it was the opposite. Making dalgona coffee and staying indoors did wonders for everyone’s stress levels. However, we mustn’t forget that people got sick, lost jobs, and died too. Consequently, this made the general population less sociable, creative, trusting, and organized. 

The decline was even more pronounced in younger adults. As the pandemic wore on, young adults got more neurotic—but over what exactly? Experts’ hint: Just look around.

Coming-of-age, interrupted

By the second year of the pandemic, all of the initial support against COVID-19 fell away. “Open hostility and social upheaval around restrictions” made us lose “all the collective good will that we had,” said Angelina Sutin, study author and behavioral sciences and social medicine assistant professor at Florida State University College of Medicine. This would have been “very significant” for the youth’s “more malleable” personalities.

The result? An interrupted coming-of-age. “Although the pandemic was stressful for everyone, it disrupted the normative tasks of young adulthood, such as school, the transition into the workforce, being sociable, and developing relationships,” Sutin said.

Normally, changes in personality are pretty common as an individual gets older. Just ask the likes of Holden Caulfield or your local politician. Since we’re all still prone to the negative effects of traumatic life events, the ideal would be to get better with age. But a rare, population-wide personality change has experts anxious over what this could mean for a whole generation’s future.

Room for growth?

The researchers linked high conscientiousness to higher educational achievement and income and lower risk of chronic diseases. High neuroticism, on the other hand, pointed to the opposite. In the age of quiet quitting, it seems the study only confirms the suspicion employers—usually older—have that millennials and Gen Z are now less reliable and stellar at work. 

But being at one’s best is a give and take. While we could do with less TikTok for the sake of our wellbeing, it’s kind of hard to stay chipper without the help of microcontent-induced dopamine when you can no longer afford your groceries. Or are suffering from your third bout of COVID. Or missing out on several key experiences for your age. Or all of the above. 

Although older adults are at greater risk from the virus, their lives were "in a much more stable place in general," Sutin said.

"Younger individuals have less resources, they're less established in their social context, in their jobs and friends," said Brent Roberts, professor of psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "So any sort of disruption, they're the ones that are going to have this fewer number of resources to ride out the storm."

This now creates a whole chicken and egg situation. Young adults can’t work because they’re changing; they’re changing because they can’t work. For instance, Sutin pointed out significant shifts among Hispanic respondents who suffered more risks from COVID and their jobs as essential workers.

Sutin isn’t sure whether these personality changes will be long-term or temporary. Still, they will likely affect the decisions young people will be making in the months to come.

Is it an “us problem”?

By now, everyone should probably have an idea that more stress is bad news for avoiding risky behaviors and mental health disorders. 

And the results have already started to show. In 2021, suicide rates in the US soared back to near-record levels—about 14 suicide deaths for every 100,000 people. It’s caused more early deaths too. It’s now the second leading cause of death in Americans aged 10 to 34 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Other factors like lax gun restrictions in the US have added to these numbers, but that’s only part of the bigger, global picture of worsening mental health in the pandemic. The Philippines itself has the third highest rate of mental health problems in the Western Pacific region, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This made mental, neurological, and substance use illnesses the third most common type of disability in the country. 

Socioeconomic constraints and stigma around seeking help resulted in over 3.6 million afflicted Filipinos. COVID-19 only worsened these outcomes as the Philippines went through its worst recession since World War II and unemployment soared to a 15-year high at 10.4% last 2020.

Now that we know personalities can change this quickly, we have to remember that services, skills, and funding—be it for public health, employment, or social welfare—must adapt quicker to address this societal problem, should it grow into a bigger one in the near future. While I’m no mental health expert, the best advice I could give in these tough, MBTI-altering times is to do something good for yourself and others today, whatever it may be.