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PurposeThe current study investigated the impact of organisational trust on emotional well-being and performance of middle leaders during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Design/methodology/approachA convenience sample of 265 middle leaders in kindergartens in China responded involving trust in schools (e.g. trust in principal and trust in colleagues), emotional well-being and job performance. Both confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used in the investigation.FindingsThree hypotheses on the relationships between the three constructs were verified. Trust in schools significantly influenced emotional well-being and job performance of middle leaders which correlated with each other. The interactive effects of trust in principal and trust in colleagues were discussed for improving the well-being and job performance of middle leaders. Relationships between the two kinds of trust and pride were also identified in the research.Research limitations/implicationsFurther studies may put efforts towards improving these three outcomes synchronously.Practical implicationsBased on the evidence of the current study, future research may focus on how middle leaders act as a bridging role between different stakeholders such as principal and teachers, principal and parents, teachers and children, meanwhile how to boost the leaders' own well-being and performance in the early childhood education (ECE).Originality/valueThis study established the empirical linkages between school trusts, emotional well-being and job performance.
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BACKGROUND: The healthcare field, a well-known field associated with variety of stressors, leaves healthcare professionals at an increased risk of both physical and mental problems. COVID-19 pandemic has recently been added to the stressful factors by endangering further the cognitive function of healthcare workers. On another hand, personality traits have been shown to have pervasive associations with functioning across various cognitive domains. Thus, this study aims to evaluate association between personality traits and perceived cognitive function among healthcare professionals in Lebanon during the collapsing period (following the severe economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic). METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted between November 2021 and January 2022 enrolled 406 Lebanese participants using the convenience sampling technique for data collection. Healthcare professionals from all specialties who received the online link to the survey were eligible to participate. The Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) and Fact Cog scale were used to assess personality traits and cognitive function. RESULTS: After adjustment over all variables (age, gender, household crowding index, physical activity index, marital status, profession and the other four personality traits), higher negative emotionality was significantly associated with a worse cognitive function, whereas more extroversion and conscientiousness were significantly associated with a better cognitive function. CONCLUSION: Our study adds to the narrow body of research revolving around the relationship between personality traits and perceived cognitive function in Lebanese healthcare professionals during these hard times in Lebanon. These results show that the choice of these cognitive processes is strongly affected by different personality traits, such as extroversion, conscientiousness, and negative emotionality. This study encourages the need to conduct further research that assess the changes in cognition in life stressors along with personality traits.
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COVID-19 , Personality , Humans , Cross-Sectional Studies , Pandemics , Crowding , Family Characteristics , Cognition , Health Personnel , Delivery of Health CareABSTRACT
Purpose: We investigated whether the relationship between extroversion and mortality changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Midlife Americans were surveyed in 1995-96 with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2020. We used a Cox model to estimate age-specific mortality controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, the period trend in mortality, an indicator for the pandemic period (Mar-Dec 2020), extroversion, and an interaction between extroversion and the pandemic indicator. Results: Prior to the pandemic, extroversion was associated with somewhat lower mortality (HR = 0.93 per SD, 95% CI 0.88-0.97), but the relationship reversed during the pandemic. Extroversion was associated with greater pandemic-related excess mortality (HR = 1.29 per SD, 95% CI 1.002-1.67). That is, compared with persons who were more introverted, those who were highly extroverted suffered a bigger increase in mortality during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic mortality levels. Conclusions: The slight mortality advantage enjoyed by more extroverted Americans prior to the pandemic disappeared during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We suspect that the mortality benefit of introversion during the pandemic is largely a result of reduced exposure to the risk of infection, but it may also derive in part from the ability of more introverted individuals to adapt more easily to reduced social interaction without engaging in self-destructive behavior (e.g., drug and alcohol abuse).
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Purpose - This longitudinal study aims at assessing the impact of openness to experience and neuroticism on affective states experienced by the academics from the Malaysian public universities during the first strict COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Design/methodology/approach - The author collected data for openness to experience and neuroticism at the beginning of the lockdown, and for positive and negative affect, when the lockdown ended. The author used the efficient partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLSe2-SEM) methodology to fit the model to the screened data (N = 291). Findings - The results showed that openness to experience had a negative effect on negative affect and a positive effect on positive affect. The author also observed that neuroticism had a positive effect on negative affect and a negative effect on positive affect. These findings provided support for the proposition of the impact of personality traits on affective states amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in academic settings. Practical implications - The study shows that careful assessment of lecturers' personality traits should be considered during the process of selection and recruitment since these factors, theoretically and empirically, trigger affective states which, in turn, lead to behaviors and attitudes. Originality/value - This is the first study on examining the impact of academics' personality traits on their affective states. Also, it is amongst the few longitudinal studies on evaluating personality traits during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a methodological novelty, the author used the PLSe2 methodology to test the model and compared the results with maximum likelihood (ML) results.
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Aim: The Purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between bright and dark aspects of personality dimensions and self-interest and other interest preventive related behaviors during Covid-19 pandemic. Method: This cross-sectional study was advertised on social media. 541 participants completed four self-reported questionnaires through the online link. Analysis was performed to assess the kind of association by SPSS. Results: Findings indicate different significant associations between the personality dimensions and preventive behaviors. Regression analysis indicated that conscientiousness (B=.27, P=.00) and agreeableness (B=.11, P=.03) positively and extraversion (B= -.14 P =.02) negatively predict self-protective behaviors. Likewise, conscientiousness (B=.40, P=. 00) and agreeableness (B=.14, P=.00) and antisocial tendencies (B= -.23, P=.00) could have predictive role in other-oriented behaviors. Conclusion: Personality traits have role in explaining compliance and noncompliance with Covid-19 guideline protocols and protecting self and others.
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COVID-19-related social distancing guidelines pose challenges that may be particularly distressing for those high in extroversion, who tend to experience greater happiness when in social situations (Costa & McCrae, 1980;Emmons & Diener, 1985). Our research sought to examine if extroversion was related to greater use of COVID-19-compliant, nontraditional social strategies (e.g. collective effervescent experiences, social surrogate use, and video-chatting) when social options were limited. We examined residents of New York State before the start of the pandemic, during the peak of the pandemic, and one year after the peak of the pandemic. Using a variety of analytical strategies, we found that extroversion was associated with greater use of nontraditional social strategies during the pandemic, and that use of some of these strategies partly explained a relationship between extroversion and maintaining happiness during the pandemic. Furthermore, extroversion was associated with greater use of some of these strategies only when traditional social opportunities were limited. These findings suggest that extroverts are likely to seek out and utilize unorthodox forms of connection to maintain wellbeing, particularly when other social options are unavailable. This work makes novel contributions to our understanding of extroversion and the flexibility of the need to belong.
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Recent studies have examined the association between personality and job performance; however, this relationship remains to be elucidated within the context of COVID-19 fear and intention to quit. Therefore, we aimed to develop a structural equation model (SEM) by exploring the effects of personality on job performance through COVID-19 fear and intention to quit. Accordingly, 447 employees participated in the study and completed the Job Performance Scale, the Scale of Intention to Quit, the COVID-19 Fear scale, and the Big Five Inventory. It was revealed that extroversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism predicted job performance via COVID-19 fear, as well as intention to quit.