Aversive Personality and COVID-19

Abstract

Abstract. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has strongly affected individuals and societies worldwide. In this review and meta-analysis, we investigated how aversive personality traits – that is, relatively stable antisocial personality characteristics – related to how individuals perceived, evaluated, and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 34 studies with overall 26,780 participants, we found that people with higher scores in aversive personality traits were less likely to perceive guidelines and restrictions to curb the spread of the virus as protective ([Formula: see text] = −.11), to engage in health behaviors related to COVID-19 ([Formula: see text] = −.16), and to engage in non-health-related prosocial behavior related to COVID-19 ([Formula: see text] = −.14). We found no consistent relation between aversive personality and negative effect regarding the pandemic. The results thus indicate the importance of aversive personality traits in understanding individual differences with regard to COVID-19.