Openness relates to COVID‐19 vaccination rates across 48 United States but politics trump personality

Abstract

AbstractDoes geographic variation in personality across the United States relate to COVID‐19 vaccination rates? To answer this question, we combined multiple state‐level datasets: (a) Big Five personality averages (i.e., extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness; Rentfrow et al., 2008), (b) COVID‐19 full‐vaccination rates (CDC, 2021a), (c) health‐relevant demographic covariates (population density, per capita gross domestic product, and racial/ethnic data; Webster et al., 2021), and (d) political and religiosity data. Analyses showed openness as the strongest correlate of full‐vaccination rates (r = 0.51). Controlling for other traits, demographic covariates, and spatial dependence, openness remained significantly related to full‐vaccination rates (rp = 0.55). Adding political and religiosity data to this model diminished openness effects for full‐vaccination rates to non‐significance (rp = 0.26); however, extraversion emerged as a significant correlate of full‐vaccination rates (rp = 0.37). Although politics are paramount, we suspect that states with higher average openness scores are more conducive to novel thinking and behavior—dispositions that may be crucial in motivating people to take newly‐developed vaccines based on new technologies to confront a novel coronavirus.