COVID-19 hit us like a ton of bricks. It came out of nowhere, and suddenly, we were forced to change so much. Schools were closed, businesses were closed, and we had to learn how to socially distance ourselves from everyone.
We saw how the economy and supply chains were affected – and those changes are still being felt over two years later.
New studies have shown that Americans have undergone a personality change as a result of COVID, too. The pandemic was so stressful that we now react to things differently. Our feelings on various topics are different.
A study from the Florida State University College of Medicine has found that isolation combined with a lack of new experiences has led to significant changes. We’re learning about all of this because there were psychological and personality assessments performed on over 7,000 people before, during, and after the pandemic.
Such assessments have been performed before when there have been stressful events. However, hurricanes and earthquakes don’t usually CHANGE our personalities.
Post-pandemic, more people feel anxious and blame the circumstances instead of themselves.
There has also been a decline in several areas – openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion.
These changes are typically common over a longer period, such as 10 or 20 years. Instead, those changes happened in the span of about a year and a half. Only those who were within the oldest group of adults experienced little to no personality change.
Basically, the pandemic led all of us to age our personalities by about 10 years. We’re now less open, less agreeable, and a lot more introverted.
