Big Five, Dark Triad, and face masks: The role of personality in reducing the spread of COVID-19

Face masks are an effective method to reduce the spread of COVID-19, but many people are reluctant to wear them. Recent authors have called for studies of personality to determine which people may have particularly negative face mask perceptions and reduced face mask wearing. In the current article, we assess the relation of the Big Five and Dark Triad with face mask perceptions and wearing. We apply a four-wave longitudinal research design collected via MTurk (n = 209, Mage = 36.97 years, 50% female, 85% American), and we use the eight-dimension Face Mask Perceptions Scale to test mediating mechanisms between personality and behavior. When tested together, conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism did not have notable relations with perceptions or wearing;openness and the Dark Triad had significant relations with face mask perceptions, and agreeableness had significant indirect effects on face mask wearing via perceptions. These results indicate that personality does relate to face mask perceptions and behaviors. We call on future research to conduct facet-level studies of personality with face mask perceptions and behaviors to ascertain the cause of these observed relations, further identify the importance of specific face mask perceptions, and integrate personality into models of health behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The mediating role of vaccine hesitancy in the relations of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and vaccination outcomes: Which dimensions matter?

COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs have a powerful detrimental influence on COVID-19 vaccine perceptions and behaviors. We investigate an expanded range of outcomes for COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, and we test which vaccine hesitancy dimensions mediate these relations. Our results show that COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs relate to COVID-19 vaccination willingness and receipt, flu vaccination willingness and receipt, as well as vaccine word-of-mouth. Many of these relations are mediated by vaccine hesitancy dimensions that represent perceptions that vaccines pose health risks as well as perceptions that vaccines are not needed because the respondent is healthy. Our discussion identifies directions for future research.

Investigating the Relation of Political Orientation and Vaccination Outcomes: Identifying the Roles of Political Ideology, Party Affiliation, and Vaccine Hesitancy.

Popular press and academic articles alike suggest that political orientation is a primary determinant of vaccination willingness, vaccination, and vaccine word-of-mouth (i.e., sharing of information regarding vaccines). In the current article, we test the validity of these suggestions, and we also assess the differential roles of political ideology (e.g., liberal-conservative) and party affiliation (e.g., Democrat-Republican) as well as the mediating effect of vaccine hesitancy's dimensions. To do so, we perform a four-wave survey study with 223 participants that completed all waves. Our results support that political orientation indeed relates to our outcomes of interest. Our results also show that political ideology has a more pronounced effect than party affiliation, and the vaccine hesitancy dimensions of Health Risks and Healthy mediate many of these relations. From these results, we suggest many directions for future research and practice, including the integration of political discourse theories in studies on political orientations and vaccination.

The good, the bad, and the neutral: Vaccine hesitancy mediates the relations of Psychological Capital, the Dark Triad, and the Big Five with vaccination willingness and behaviors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it apparent that many people are unwilling to be vaccinated, and certain types of people seem predisposed to support or oppose vaccines. We perform a multiple-wave survey study to determine whether the Big Five, Dark Triad, and Psychological Capital (PsyCap) indirectly relate via vaccine hesitancy to vaccination willingness, vaccination, and vaccine word-of-mouth. Our results show that conscientiousness, extraversion, narcissism, psychopathy, and PsyCap each influence our outcomes via dimensions of vaccine hesitancy. PsyCap had an additional direct effect beyond these mediators. The overall effects of extraversion and PsyCap were negative on vaccine hesitancy, positive on pro-vaccination outcomes, and negative on anti-vaccination outcomes. The overall effects of conscientiousness, narcissism, and psychopathy were positive on vaccine hesitancy, negative on pro-vaccination outcomes, and positive on anti-vaccination outcomes. To conclude, we identify theoretical frameworks that can provide further insights into these relations. We suggest that the effects of conscientiousness may be understood by integrating research on overconfidence; the effects of extraversion and PsyCap may be understood by applying the situation, trait, and outcome activation model; and the effects of narcissism and psychopathy may be understood with Life History Theory.

Are face masks a partisan issue during the COVID-19 pandemic? Differentiating political ideology and political party affiliation.

Popular press articles have asserted that those with certain political orientations are less likely to wear face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose that this relation is due to differential information shared by political parties rather than values associated with face mask wearing. We further propose that, when assessed together, political party affiliation (e.g., Republican, Democrat) but not political ideology (e.g., conservative, liberal) predicts face mask wearing, and this effect is mediated by perceptions of efficacy doubts but not perceptions that face masks infringe upon the wearer's independence. We performed a three-wave, time-separated survey study with 226 participants. Each proposal was supported. When assessed together, political party affiliation but not political ideology significantly predicted face mask wearing, and a significant indirect effect was observed via perceptions of efficacy doubts but not independence. Our results support that face mask wearing is a unique preventative action, which should be understood using political theory.

The relations between age, face mask perceptions and face mask wearing.

Popular press outlets have proposed that older individuals are less likely to wear face masks despite health benefits of doing so during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current article investigates this notion in four separate studies, and we also assess the mediating effect of face mask perceptions between age and face mask wearing using the eight-dimension Face Masks Perceptions Scale (FMPS). The sample-size weighted average correlation between age and face mask wearing was -.07 (95%C.I.[-.14, .001], Z-value = -1.928, P = .054, n = 824), indicating that older individuals are slightly less likely to wear face masks compared to younger individuals. Age did not have significant relations with any face mask perceptions, and the mediating effect of face mask perceptions was not robust or consistent. This indicates that the relation between age and face mask wearing is not explained by face mask perceptions, and researchers must turn to other explanatory mechanisms to understand this relation. We propose possible avenues, such as dual-system theories, to further investigate this research question as well as others associated with face mask perceptions, face mask wearing and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gender, face mask perceptions, and face mask wearing: Are men being dangerous during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Recent popular press authors have proposed that men are less likely to wear face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigate this notion in the current article by analyzing three extant datasets. We also assess the mediating effect of eight different face mask perceptions in the relation between gender and face mask wearing via the Face Mask Perceptions Scale. Across the three datasets, the sample-size weighted meta-analytic correlation between gender and face mask wearing was not statistically significant, and no face mask perception was a consistent mediator of this effect. Gender did have significant relations with two face mask perceptions, however. Men were more likely to perceive face masks as infringing on their independence, whereas women were more likely to perceive face masks as uncomfortable. Therefore, although gender does not relate to whether a person wears a face mask, it does relate to face mask perceptions. We offer several suggestions for research and practice from these results, such as the positioning of face mask wearing alongside passive health behaviors, the broader study of face mask perceptions' outcomes beyond face mask wearing, as well as the creation of interventions to target differing face mask perceptions across genders.

Who wants to reopen the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic? The daring and uncaring.

Economic shutdowns, which refer to disallowing employees to work on site, are among the most contentious approaches to reduce the spread of COVID-19. While economic shutdowns save lives, their large economic costs have caused some people to develop strong attitudes and even break government-issued mandates, which incurs health risks and often the need to extend the economic shutdowns. In the current article, we argue that the interaction of two personality characteristics, risk-taking tendencies and prosocial tendencies, is a strong determinant of attitudes toward economic shutdowns, and we assess the impact of this interaction on three different attitudes toward economic shutdowns that differ by their focal target: employees, customers, and organizations. The results demonstrate that this interaction significantly predicted economic shutdown attitudes toward customers and organizations but not employees. We suggest that these results can be understood via the lens of behavioral decision-making theories as well as a recent framework on antisocial risk takers, both of which provide several subsequent directions for future research. We conclude with recommendations for the development of effective messages to curb defiant behaviors toward economic shutdowns, such as focusing on those most likely to perform these problematic behaviors - the daring and uncaring.

Understanding face mask use to prevent coronavirus and other illnesses: Development of a multidimensional face mask perceptions scale.

Face masks are an avenue to curb the spread of coronavirus, but few people in Western societies wear face masks. Social scientists have rarely studied face mask wearing, leaving little guidance for methods to encourage these behaviours. In the current article, we provide an approach to address this issue by developing the 32-item and 8-dimension Face Mask Perceptions Scale (FMPS). We begin by developing an over-representative item list in a qualitative study, wherein participants' responses are used to develop items to ensure content relevance. This item list is then reduced via exploratory factor analysis in a second study, and the eight dimensions of the scale are supported. We also support the validity of the FMPS, as the scale significantly relates to both face mask wearing and health perceptions. We lastly confirm the factor structure of the FMPS in a third study via confirmatory factor analysis. From these efforts, we identify an avenue that social scientists can aid in preventing coronavirus and illness more broadly - by studying face mask perceptions and behaviours.