How could experts in psychology of individual differences contribute to our understanding

of human behaviour during or after a global pandemic?

Social isolation has been one of the crucial strategies to fight the coronavirus COVID-19 for several
months to date, as it effectively reduces the likelihood of person-to-person transmission. As a result
of orders and advice from the government, many people avoided any unnecessary social contact.
Although this measure helped get the virus under control and make the situation somewhat more
manageable, for many people it has also lead to psychological and well-being problems.

Under normal circumstances, people spend the majority of their waking time surrounded by others,
and they generally prefer this to spending time alone (Emler, 1994). Thus, there is no wonder that
long-term social isolation can be potentially damaging to their mental health. There is abundant
empirical evidence that loneliness is associated with depression (Cacioppo et al., 2006), suicidal
behaviour (Rudatsikira et al., 2007), alcoholism (Akerlind & Hornquist, 1992), and many other
undesirable consequences. Social isolation can create feelings of loneliness and its effects can be
different based on individual differences in people's personalities. The aim of this essay is to discuss
how social isolation impacts different personality types, focusing on the extraversion dimension.

Personality is one of the major areas of study in the field of individual differences. There are various
approaches to studying personality, with the trait approach being dominant in current personality
research. It focuses on identifying and measuring individual traits that constitute personality to
understand differences among individuals. Major theories of personality in the trait approach
include Costa and McCrae‘s (1992) Big 5 model, and Eysenck’s (1947) Giant 3 theory, which will be
described in this essay.

The Big 5 model (Costa & McCrae, 1992) includes 5 dimensions of personality: extraversion,
neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Extraversion refers to
the extent people like to spend time alone or with others and the extent to which they feel positive
emotions. Neuroticism describes the degree to which people feel negative emotions, especially in
terms of intrapersonal feelings. Agreeableness refers to the quality of being friendly and pleasant.
Conscienciousness describes how people control and regulate their impulses, and how they
complete tasks. Openness to experience describes to what extent people are intellectually curious,
creative, and open to new things. The Big 5 model is descriptive rather than explanatory, which is
often deemed its largest disadvantage and leads to its weak theoretical foundations. Other
limitations of the Big 5 were outlined, such as lack of independence between agreeableness and
conscientiousness dimensions, which show high positive correlations, or overreliance on pre-
structured models, making it vulnerable to confirmation bias. Nevertheless, there is a considerable
amount of empirical support for the Big 5, including high heritability indices, emergence in different
cultures, stability across the lifespan, and prediction of many external criteria.

The ability to measure personality traits and explore their correlations with various behaviours
allows scientists to predict behaviour of people with different personality traits. It can be extremely
useful during COVID-19 crisis, as the personality measures can help psychologists predict what
effects could different aspects of the crisis have on different people. This would allow them to
respond to the situation appropriately, tailoring their intervention to the individuals‘ needs based on
their personality differences.

Eysenck’s (1947) Giant 3 theory has three dimensions - neuroticism, extraversion, and psychoticism
and places more focus on explaining rather than merely describing individual differences in
personality. Eysenck (1963) hypothesized that the degree of introversion depends on the levels of
cortical arousal. He characterized extraverts as having a relatively high level of cortical inhibition and
low level of excitation, whereas introverts vice versa. He later identified a specific brain area – the
ascending reticular activating system, whose levels of activity highly correlated with the degree of
introversion. There is substantial evidence to support Eysenck‘s hypothesis about the physiological
nature of introversion. EEG studies show observable differences in the cortical activity of introverts
and extraverts (e.g. Savage, 1964; Gale et al., 1969), data from conditioning experiments show
introverts are easier to condition (Eysenck, 1962) and introversion was also linked to lower pain
tolerance (Barnes, 1975). All this evidence suggests that the central nervous system of introverts
tends to be over-aroused, while the central nervous system of extroverts tends to be under-aroused.
As a result, introverts are less likely to seek external stimulation because the level of arousal of their
CNS is high already. On the other hand, extroverts need to increase their level of arousal by finding
stimuli in the external environment, thus are more likely to use stimulants such as drugs and alcohol,
and engage more in sporting or social behavior.

When it comes to predicting the effects of social isolation on people during COVID-19 crisis, the most
important personality dimension is undoubtedly extraversion, which concerns the extent of
sociability and positivity. Extraverts are described as talkative, friendly, sociable, and bold, whereas
introverts are quiet, reserved, and inhibited. Watson et al. (1992) found a .35 correlation between
extraversion and social activity and Diener, Larsen, and Emmons (1984) found extraverts tend to
report more social activity than introverts. This is in line with Eysenck‘s assumptions about the
differences in CNS arousal which suggest extroverts tend to seek more external stimulation.
Moreover, the amount of social activity in extraverts is linked to their positive emotionality. Argyle
and Lu (1990) collected data on happiness, social activities, and personality from 131 Oxford
University students and found high correlations of extraversion and social activities as well as
extraversion and happiness. They argued that higher enjoyment of social activities partly explains
why extraverts are generally happier than introverts.

From the research cited above we can conclude that forced social isolation is most likely to have the
strongest negative impact on highly extraverted people. These people will feel the limitations of the
current situation to the greatest extent, because they are most often engaging in social activities
under normal circumstances. Socialisation represents one of the sources of external stimulation,
which extroverts desire. If it is absent, they may look for other ways to increase the arousal in their
CNS, thus they are in a great danger of turning to stimulant drugs and alcohol.

Reduced amount of socialization may also have a detrimental effect on their mental well-being,
decreasing their positive emotions, which were shown to be mediated by socialization (Argyle & Lu,
1990). If healthcare workers/ psychologists have access to personality measures of their patients,
they could be able to identify people who suffer the most from the effects of social isolation and
provide timely intervention to ensure their mental well-being. This approach can also be extended to
other personality traits which are related to other aspects of COVID-19 situation - e.g.
conscientiousness and the extent to which people follow protective measures such as wearing
facemasks or frequently washing their hands - and can help install effective and personality-tailored
fight against the virus and protection of well-being.
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