COVID-19 and friendships: Agreeableness and neuroticism are associated with more concern about COVID-19 and friends' risky behaviors

Jessica D Ayers; Diego Guevara Beltrán; Andrew Van Horn; Lee Cronk; Hector Hurmuz-Sklias; Peter M Todd; Athena Aktipis

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2023.112297

COVID-19 and friendships: Agreeableness and neuroticism are associated with more concern about COVID-19 and friends' risky behaviors

Pers Individ Dif. 2023 Oct:213:112297. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2023.112297. Epub 2023 Jun 12.

Authors

Jessica D Ayers¹, Diego Guevara Beltrán², Andrew Van Horn³, Lee Cronk⁴, Hector Hurmuz-Sklias², Peter M Todd⁵, Athena Aktipis^{2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychological Science, Boise State University, United States.
² Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, United States.
³ Departments of Physics and Art History, Case Western Reserve University, United States.
⁴ Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, United States.
⁵ Cognitive Science Program and Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, United States.
⁶ Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, United States.

Abstract

Given the importance of friendships during challenging times and the mixed associations between personality traits and disease-related behaviors, we investigated the correlations between personality traits and perceptions of friendships during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected as part of a longitudinal investigation of the correlations between the pandemic and various cooperative relationships. In this investigation, we found that agreeableness and neuroticism predicted participants being more concerned about COVID-19 and bothered by friends' risky behavior, and extraversion predicted enjoying helping friends during the pandemic. Our results suggest that personality differences are associated with how individuals cope with friends' risky behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cooperation; Friendship; Personality.