Protective measures or shelter-in-place: Personality and attitudes toward anti-pandemic policies in Kosovo

Session

Psychology

Description

The extant research on the role of personality traits in attitudes toward COVID-19 pandemic and policies to counter it have produced little consensus over the impact of specific traits on such attitudes. In search of a better understanding of the role of personality traits on attitudes toward anti-COVID policies, we apply an innovative research design to investigate the role of personality traits from the Big Five model on preferences toward anti-COVID protective measures and shelter-in-place as well as between them. We tried to capture attitudes along three policy preferences: governmentally/socially enforced protective measures/shelter-in-place; acceptance/appreciation of protective measures/shelter-in-place; and dismissive approaches to protective measures/shelter-in-place. We compared those attitudes between two randomly selected groups, with respondents in one of them being asked their agreement with anti-COVID protective measures, and the respondents of the other one being asked their agreement with the shelter-in-place policy. Openness positively predicts agreement both protective measures and shelter-in-place in all three topics, but predicts a statistically significant drop in agreement with shelter-in-place in all three topics. Both Agreeableness and Consciousness predict similar behavioral patterns: whereas they positively predict agreement with both protective measures and shelter-in-place, they also negatively predict agreement with governmentally/socially enforced shelter-in-place. By the same token, both Extraversion and Emotional Stability predict similar attitudinal patterns: they predict both disagreement with governmentally/socially imposed shelter-in-place, and opposition to dismissive attitudes toward anti-COVID protective measures and shelter-in-place. However, differently from Extraversion, Emotional Stability positively predicts acceptance/appreciation of both protective measures and shelter-in-place. We test our hypotheses with public opinion data from a representative survey sample that we collected in winter 2019-2020. The findings are relevant for both understanding the role of personality traits in attitudes toward policy messages, and for policy makers in their effort to crafting policy messages that the public would accept better.

Keywords:

Big-Five personality traits, anti-COVID policy, governmentally/socially enforced protective measures/shelter-in-place, acceptance/appreciation of protective measures/shelter-in-place; and dismissive approaches to protective measures/shelter-in-place

Proceedings Editor

Edmond Hajrizi

ISBN

978-9951-550-95-6

Location

UBT Kampus, Lipjan

Start Date

28-10-2023 8:00 AM

End Date

29-10-2023 6:00 PM

DOI

10.3107/ubt-ic.2023.31

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Oct 28th, 8:00 AM Oct 29th, 6:00 PM

Protective measures or shelter-in-place: Personality and attitudes toward anti-pandemic policies in Kosovo

UBT Kampus, Lipjan

The extant research on the role of personality traits in attitudes toward COVID-19 pandemic and policies to counter it have produced little consensus over the impact of specific traits on such attitudes. In search of a better understanding of the role of personality traits on attitudes toward anti-COVID policies, we apply an innovative research design to investigate the role of personality traits from the Big Five model on preferences toward anti-COVID protective measures and shelter-in-place as well as between them. We tried to capture attitudes along three policy preferences: governmentally/socially enforced protective measures/shelter-in-place; acceptance/appreciation of protective measures/shelter-in-place; and dismissive approaches to protective measures/shelter-in-place. We compared those attitudes between two randomly selected groups, with respondents in one of them being asked their agreement with anti-COVID protective measures, and the respondents of the other one being asked their agreement with the shelter-in-place policy. Openness positively predicts agreement both protective measures and shelter-in-place in all three topics, but predicts a statistically significant drop in agreement with shelter-in-place in all three topics. Both Agreeableness and Consciousness predict similar behavioral patterns: whereas they positively predict agreement with both protective measures and shelter-in-place, they also negatively predict agreement with governmentally/socially enforced shelter-in-place. By the same token, both Extraversion and Emotional Stability predict similar attitudinal patterns: they predict both disagreement with governmentally/socially imposed shelter-in-place, and opposition to dismissive attitudes toward anti-COVID protective measures and shelter-in-place. However, differently from Extraversion, Emotional Stability positively predicts acceptance/appreciation of both protective measures and shelter-in-place. We test our hypotheses with public opinion data from a representative survey sample that we collected in winter 2019-2020. The findings are relevant for both understanding the role of personality traits in attitudes toward policy messages, and for policy makers in their effort to crafting policy messages that the public would accept better.