Psychological Types of Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The article presents the results of an empirical study aimed at analyzing the relationship between the psychological characteristics of a person, their perceptions of COVID-19, their attitudes towards vaccination and their behavior in a pandemic situation. 2,786 people took part in the online survey. Participants completed the following methods: the Pandemic Opinions questionnaire, Big Five Inventory-2, D. Amir khan's Coping Strategies Indicator, State Anxiety Subscale from the Ch. D. Spiel berger's State-Trait Anxiety Scale. The study revealed a variety of psychological prerequisites for such forms of adaptive response to the pandemic as the implementation of preventive measures and the adoption of vaccination. These included personality traits, coping strategies, emotional state, and pandemic-related perceptions. A variety of typical response options in a pandemic situation has been found. Three psychological types were distinguished among those who actively carried out preventive measures and two types among those who poorly performed these measures. Three types of people were identified who have a positive attitude towards vaccination, and three types in the group with a negative attitude towards it. Each type was characterized by a specific set of personality traits, coping strategies, and pandemic-related perceptions. The results of the study suggest three main pathways that lead people to an adaptive response to a pandemic. The first is largely due to a person’s stable personal characteristics (responsibility, benevolence, adaptability of coping strategies), the second is associated with a person’s acute experience of their vulnerability to coronavirus, while the third, seemingly, has extrapersonal determinants associated with a person’s social environment.