A new study suggests that adults experienced few changes in "Big Five" personality traits as a result of the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Angelina Sutin of Florida State University College of Medicine and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 6, 2020.

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The "Big Five" personality traitsextraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousnessare part of a psychological framework known as the Five Factor Model. These traits typically remain stable in normal circumstances, but they can change in response to unusual distress.

Sutin and colleagues hypothesized that the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to control it could be disruptive enough to change personality traits. To test this idea, they surveyed 2,137 adults from across the U.S. in early February 2020, before the pandemic had reached critical levels in the U.S., and again in mid March, when its impact had become widespread.