Name of Student: SHIELA S.

BADIANG
Course: ADVANCED THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
Activity: CRITIQUE PAPER #2

Title: Big Five personality traits and COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among older
adults in Europe

Introduction:
The study of personality is one of the various areas in psychology which has been given
important attention by psychologists to study the totality of one's behaviors that make the
individual unique. While there exist arguments about how exactly to define personality, many
agreed that it is often considered as something that arises from within the individual and remains
consistent throughout life. A commonly accepted definition of personality refers to individual
differences in characteristics patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving (APA Online Dictionary,
n.d). Further, personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that
give both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior (Feist et al., 2018).

The essence of studying and understanding personality allows psychologists to predict

how people will most likely respond to different situations. Researchers in personality usually
anchor their study to specific personality theories. In this case, the Big-Five personality traits is
the focus of the study associating the five traits to the COVID-19 precautionary behaviors.

Article Summary:
The title of the study is “Big Five personality traits and COVID-19 precautionary
behaviors among older adults in Europe.” The study was just recently conducted in 2021 by
Airaksien, Komulainen, and Gluschkoffa, from the Department of Psychology and Logopedics,
Faculty of Medicine, Helsinki, Finland, and Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, Faculty
of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki. The objective of the study was to examine whether
Big Five personality traits are associated with COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among the
older adults in Europe.
People differ in their observance of COVID-19 safety recommendations, but the origins
of these differences are not well understood until literature came out from various research to use
the personality traits as a measure to study these individual differences in taking their
precautionary behaviors with the recent global health crises, the COVID-19 (Airaksinen et.al,
2021).
The data used in this study was taken from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement
in Europe (SHARE), a cross-national panel study that has collected data from up to 140,000
persons aged 50 and older from 27 European countries and Israel. SHARE comprises study
waves, including the SHARE COVID-19 survey conducted in 2020. The final sample size was
34,629 individuals as the only eligible for this study, as they had data on personality traits,
COVID-19 precautionary behaviors, and demographics. The data used were also taken from
wave 7 with existing data on self-reported using BFI-10 inventory in 2017, and the SHARE
COVID-19 precautionary behaviors in 2020. A written or verbal consent was also ensured from
the participants of this study (Airaksinen et.al, 2021).
The main measures of this study were the COVID-19 precautionary behaviors and the
Big Five personality traits. In this study, the COVID-19 precautionary behaviors were assessed
with five outcomes: 1) wearing a face mask, 2) limiting in-person contacts, 3) keeping a distance
from others in public, 4) washing hands, and 5) using a disinfectant. The Big Five personality
traits were measured using the 10-item version of the Big Five Inventory. The traits being
measured in the BFI-10 are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism. Other covariates in the study are age, gender, education, and
country of residence (Airaksinen et.al, 2021). XX
The findings of this study showed that personality traits were differentially associated
with precautionary behaviors, with higher openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism showing
the most consistent associations. The pattern of associations between personality traits and
precautionary behaviors varied depending on the specific behavior. The associations were
relatively weak in comparison to those between sociodemographic factors and precautionary
behaviors. The study concluded that taking COVID-19 precautionary behaviors were
consistently associated with at least three personality traits such as higher openness,
conscientiousness, and neuroticism. This suggests that precautionary behaviors may be driven or
influenced through multiple psychological differences in terms of traits (Airaksinen et.al, 2021).
Critical Analysis:

The study of personality traits to measure its other facets and relations to various
situations has been widely used and researched like academic performance as measured by SAT
and GP, and emotions (Feist et al., 2018). A study on personality traits as a predictor of
successful transitions from school to vocational education and training (Nießen et al., 2020).
However, the study of Airaksinen et.al (2021) on the Big Five personality traits is unique since it
was associated with precautionary behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is
the current situation of the world's health crisis. The authors have also chosen an inventory of
personality traits that are widely used with good psychometric properties such as reliability and
validity tested to different samples. It is also good to note that the sample population being used
in this study was also a big size covering different countries in Europe including Israel.
There are also drawbacks of the study which I find it important to be included during the
conduct of the study. Firstly, the questions on precautionary behaviors related to COVID-19
though concise but with very limited items which may confine the participants of their responses.
Secondly, the data used for personality traits using BFI-10 including the demographic profile for
the 34, 629 was collected in 2017, an old databank of the Survey of Health, Aging, and
Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and was associated with the precautionary behaviors on
COVID-19 which recently collected from June-July in 2021. The validity of the test results is my
point of concern. Thirdly, true enough to recognize that the variable of this study such as
precautionary behaviors which is being associated with personality traits using the BFI-10 is
pertinent to the current situation where it is a global concern, the precautionary behaviors
identified in this study can only be used to health crisis to COVID-19 pandemic or health crisis
related to this. Hence, though this can be retested, in terms of applicability to other possible
health crises that may arise is limited, since the precautionary behaviors vary from what is
required of the situations related to any pandemic. The use of the BFI-10 or the longer version of
this inventory is less likely to be questioned since this has been tested for years in different
research.
REFERENCES:

Airaksinen, J., Komulainen, K., Jokela, M., & Gluschkoff, K. (2021). Big Five personality traits and
COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among older adults in Europe. Aging and Health
Research, 1(4), 100038. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahr.2021.100038

Feist, J. et.al. (2018). Theories of personality. McGraw-Hill Education.

Nießen, D., Danner, D., Spengler, M., & Lechner, C. M. (2020). undefined. Frontiers in

Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01827.

Qasemi, L., & Behroozi, M. (2017). undefined. New Trends and Issues Proceedings on

Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(3), 308-312. https://doi.org/10.18844/gjhss.v3i3.1577

Willroth, E. C., Smith, A. M., Shallcross, A., Graham, E. K., Mroczek, D., & Ford, B. Q.

(2020). The health behavior model of personality in the context of a public health
crisis. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mu3ja