Lecturers' personality traits and affective states amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: estimating a theory-driven longitudinal model using the novel PLSe2 methodology

Abstract

PurposeThis 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/approachThe 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).FindingsThe 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 implicationsThe 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/valueThis 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.