From the Northwestern University (Willroth, Graham, Mroczek), Evanston, Illinois; University of Toronto (Smith, Ford), Toronto, Canada; and New York University School of Medicine (Shallcross), New York City, New York.
Psychosom Med. 2021 May 1;83(4):363-367. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000000937.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended behavioral measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, such as social distancing and wearing masks. Although many individuals comply with these recommendations, compliance has been far from universal. Identifying predictors of compliance is crucial for improving health behavior messaging and thereby reducing disease spread and fatalities.
We report preregistered analyses from a longitudinal study that investigated personality predictors of compliance with behavioral recommendations in diverse US adults across five waves from March to August 2020 (n = 596) and cross-sectionally in August 2020 (n = 405).
Agreeableness-characterized by compassion-was the most consistent predictor of compliance, above and beyond other traits, and sociodemographic predictors (sample A, β = 0.25; sample B, β = 0.12). The effect of agreeableness was robust across two diverse samples and sensitivity analyses. In addition, openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion were also associated with greater compliance, but effects were less consistent across sensitivity analyses and were smaller in sample A.
Individuals who are less agreeable are at higher risk for noncompliance with behavioral mandates, suggesting that health messaging can be meaningfully improved with approaches that address these individuals in particular. These findings highlight the strong theoretical and practical utility of testing long-standing psychological theories during real-world crises.
美国疾病控制与预防中心建议采取行为措施来减缓 COVID-19 的传播，例如保持社交距离和戴口罩。尽管许多人遵守这些建议，但遵守情况远非普遍。确定遵守的预测因素对于改进健康行为信息传递至关重要，从而减少疾病传播和死亡。
我们报告了一项纵向研究的预先注册分析，该研究调查了个性预测因素与 2020 年 3 月至 8 月五个时间点的不同美国成年人的行为建议遵守情况（n = 596）以及 2020 年 8 月的横断面研究（n = 405）。
宜人性（以同情心为特征）是遵守行为建议的最一致的预测因素，超过了其他特质和社会人口预测因素（样本 A，β=0.25；样本 B，β=0.12）。宜人性的效果在两个不同的样本中都是稳健的，并且在敏感性分析中也是如此。此外，开放性、尽责性和外向性也与更高的遵守率相关，但在敏感性分析中效应不那么一致，并且在样本 A 中较小。
不太宜人性的个体更有可能不遵守行为命令，这表明通过针对这些个体的方法可以显著改善健康信息传递。这些发现突出了在现实世界危机期间测试长期存在的心理理论的强大理论和实际效用。
