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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1511970

Are Individual Differences in Personality Associated with COVID-19 Infection? Examining the Role of Normative, Maladaptive, and Dark Personality Traits using Structural Equation Modeling

Provisionally accepted
Parandis Pourdehghan Parandis Pourdehghan 1,2*Aaron L. Pincus Aaron L. Pincus 2Mohammad Reza Mohammadi Mohammad Reza Mohammadi 1
  • 1 Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  • 2 The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University Park, Pennsylvania, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: During the COVID-19 pandemic, people's behaviors have been considered an important factor in the spread of coronavirus. This situation led us to examine the role of personality in human behavior and its outcomes during the pandemic. This study examined the effect of normative, maladaptive, and dark personality traits on the probability of COVID-19 infection as mediated by psychological and behavioral responses to the pandemic. Methods: The data was collected from 740 Iranians (mean age = 33.34) completing Big Five-10, Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Brief Form (PID-5-BF)-Adult, Short Dark Triad (SD3), Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale -21 Items (DASS-21), and Protective Behaviors inventories. We used structural equation modeling to fit a model from the personality traits to COVID-19 infection through mediating effects of psychological and behavioral responses using cross-sectional data.Results: All path models examined fit the data well. The normative traits openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, introversion, and disagreeableness were positively related to social distancing. The pathological traits antagonism, detachment, negative affectivity, disinhibition, and psychoticism, and dark traits psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism were negatively associated with social distancing. Finally, social distancing was negatively related to infection rates and fully mediated all personality links with infection (β = -0.17, P < 0.001).The findings demonstrate that individual differences in personality predict behaviors crucial to pandemic mitigation. Social distancing can be, directly or indirectly, a significant underlying mechanism linking personality traits to the COVID-19 infection. Public health policymakers should consider personality-tailored interventions for maximizing preventive health behaviors and slowing the spread of infection. This knowledge also could contribute to more effective measures to prepare for public health emergencies in the future.

    Keywords: Personality, Personality pathology, individual differences, Social distancing, COVID-19

    Received: 15 Oct 2024; Accepted: 07 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Pourdehghan, Pincus and Mohammadi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Parandis Pourdehghan, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.