Condon, D. M., & Weston, S. J. (2021). Personality States of the Union. Collabra: Psychology, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.30140 Personality Psychology Personality States of the Union David M. Condon 1 a, Sara J. Weston 1 1 Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA Keywords: personality, states, traits, personality change https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.30140 Collabra: Psychology Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2021 Fluctuations in the average daily personality of the United States capture both meaningful affective responses to world events (e.g., changes in anxiety or well-being) and broader psychological responses. We estimate the change in national personality in the months following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate fluctuations in personality states during the year 2020 using data from an ongoing personality assessment project. We find significant and meaningful change in personality traits since the beginning of the pandemic, as well as evidence of instability in personality states. When evaluating changes from the first few months of 2020 to the period of social distancing related to COVID-19 restrictions, the social traits reflected an unexpected “deprivation” effect such that mean self-ratings increased in the wake of restricted opportunities for social interaction. Changes in mean levels of the affective traits were not significant over the same months, but they did differ significantly from the average levels of prior years when looking at shorter time intervals (rolling 7-day averages) around prominent national events. This instability may reflect meaningful fluctuations in national personality, as we find that daily personality states are associated with other indices of national health, including daily COVID-19 cases and the S&P index. Overall, the use of personality measures to capture responses to global events offers a more holistic picture of the U.S. psyche and of personality change at the national level. Substantial prior work has documented that personality serious consequences for the long-term outcomes of coun- traits differ across geographic regions (Allik & McCrae, tries. However, personality change at the nation-level has 2004; McCrae & Terracciano, 2005; Schmitt et al., 2007; Wei remained largely unstudied because such change either et al., 2017) and that such differences are associated with happens slowly over time (requiring continuous assessment important psychological (Steel & Ones, 2002), economic (de across decades) or in the face of a strong and sudden situ- Vries et al., 2011; Kirkcaldy et al., 1998), political (Barceló, ation that greatly affects a large proportion of the popula- 2017; Connelly & Ones, 2008; Rentfrow et al., 2009), and tion. health outcomes (McCann, 2010; Rentfrow et al., 2013). Na- But the COVID-19 pandemic created a quasi-experimen- tional traits, for example, are associated with GDP and sub- tal condition, during which we have reason to suspect the jective well-being (Kirkcaldy et al., 1998), while state-level personality of the United States has changed. Moreover, traits predict income inequality (de Vries et al., 2011) and the year 2020 included multiple major news events and sit- voting patterns (Rentfrow et al., 2009). The relationships uations which may have also contributed to noticeable between personality and outcomes at the state- and coun- changes in national personality. Importantly, even if na- try-level are often stronger than similar relationships at the tional personality is stable in the long-term, short-term person-level (Steel & Ones, 2002), suggesting that regional fluctuations in some traits could prove to have measurable and national personality contains important information impact on the psychological and physical health of the na- for policy-makers. tion. To date, the study of national personality has occurred To illustrate the notions of personality change and fluc- in the context of cross-cultural research, in which trait lev- tuation in the context of the pandemic, we describe the els and outcomes are compared between-countries. How- example of trait Sociability. If a person, Peter, wanted to ever, just as personality is known to change and fluctuate change his level of Sociability, he would be advised that trait within a single person (Caspi et al., 2005; Fleeson & Jayaw- change is possible, if difficult, through changes in daily- ickreme, 2015), we might also expect changes and fluctua- life processes (Quintus et al., 2020; Wrzus & Roberts, 2017) tions in personality within countries over time. The poten- and that he should target behaviors related to Sociability tial for change in personality at the level of nations poses (Stieger et al., 2020). For example, Peter might start work- a dcondon@uoregon.edu Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article-pdf/7/1/30140/486657/collabra_2021_7_1_30140.pdf by guest on 13 July 2022 Personality States of the Union ing in cafes instead of solo-occupant offices, or plan more pathologies. Recent focus on intraindividual personality frequent social outings with groups. If Peter were able to suggests that the assessments of state dynamics can better change his daily habits for long enough, he may begin to characterize persons than trait levels (Danvers et al., 2020; experience more durable and less intentional increases in Sosnowska et al., 2019). his trait Sociability. Scaling this process up to change the The current study assesses (1) the degree of personality personality of a nation would require consistent change in change in the United States after the pandemic began, (2) daily processes for many citizens of a country. Millions of the fluctuations in personality states during 2020, and (3) Americans would need to engage in new daily behaviors in the extent to which fluctuations in states are meaningful, as more or less the same direction, simultaneously. Under nor- defined by their associations with other indices of national mal circumstances, it would be unlikely for the personalities health, both physical (COVID-19 cases) and financial (S&P of countries, or other large groups, to change substantially closing prices). To answer these questions, we use data (N in a short period of time (Elleman et al., 2018; Rentfrow et = 40,887) collected through the SAPA-Project (Condon et al., 2008, 2013). al., 2017; Condon & Revelle, 2015), an ongoing personal- Even so, short-term changes or fluctuations in the per- ity assessment platform that collects data on thousands of sonality states of nations may have import. In March and personality items continuously. Such ongoing data collec- April of 2020, public health officials called for American cit- tion allows for assessment of change without reliance on izens to “flatten the curve,” or slow the rate of spread of the retrospective reports. Though the data collected through coronavirus, through the use of social distancing (Matrajt & the SAPA-Project are cross-sectional, there is considerable Leung, 2020; Thunström et al., 2020). In essence, the call precedent in psychological research for using large-scale was for Americans to engage in active, if short-term, per- cross-sectional data sets to estimate normative longitudinal sonality change: reduce Sociability for a period of 2-3 weeks trends in personality change (Roberts & Mroczek, 2008; in an effort to measurably reduce viral spread and maintain Soto et al., 2011). public health. Again, we note here the distinction between lasting long-term change in personality and fluctuations in Methods personality states. We do not claim that engagement in so- Data collection and participants cial distancing is a form of long-term personality change, nor is there currently evidence that the personalities of in- Personality data was collected as part of the Synthetic dividuals changed in consistent ways during the first weeks Aperture Personality Assessment (SAPA) project, an inter- of the pandemic (Sutin et al., 2020). national online personality assessment tool (Condon & Yet personality states reflect both affective fluctuations Revelle, 2015). Participants were motivated to complete the and situation-specific behaviors (Wilson et al., 2017) and survey in exchange for customized feedback about their provide meaningful insight into the psychological experi- personality. Participants could answer as many questions ence of individuals. Fluctuations in personality at the na- as they chose, from 25 to 250 personality questions; more tional level likely hold information relevant to more tran- feedback was given to participants who answered more sitory concerns of a country, especially with regard to less questions. Responding was also optional for all demo- stable outcomes, such as some economic indicators or, dur- graphic prompts except age, gender, and a question asking ing a pandemic, public health and well-being. Early work whether participants had previously completed the survey. points to increases in loneliness and decreases in well-be- This data collection protocol was approved by the Univer- ing during the first months of the pandemic (Gubler et al., sity of Oregon Institutional Review board to have Exempt 2020; Zacher & Rudolph, 2020); based on these findings, Status, including informed consent. All methods were car- changes to other personality states also seemed likely. ried out in accordance with guidelines and regulations. Par- We note that change in nation-level personality may re- ticipant data for this sample were collected between the sult from multiple situations. As described above, an un- dates of January 1 and December 31, 2020 (inclusive). Par- usual situation affecting most or all persons in a country ticipants were included in these analyses if they reported would be one example. Another example would be a situ- residing in the United States (N = 40,887). ation that has a large effect on a subset of the population. Participants (67% female) ranged from 13- to 90-years- With that in mind, consider the potential for personality old (M = 25.29, SD = 11.34). Participants are generally change following the killing of George Floyd, the Black Lives healthy, with 61% (N = 23,981) of those responding to a sin- Matter protests, the lead-up to the national election, and gle item rating of self-reported health as very good or excel- the sitting president’s refusal to concede the election. Re- lent. Of those who reported employment status (84%), the gardless of political orientation, one would concede that majority were either currently employed (45%; N = 15,391) such events were highly emotional and potentially disrup- or a student (39%; N = 13,373). tive for at least a subset of the US population, and thus may precipitate short-term fluctuations in national personality. Measures Fluctuations in personality traits may be assessed through the application of indices originally developed for Personality was assessed using the hierarchical SAPA Per- research on affective dynamics (Marwaha et al., 2014; Ong sonality Inventory (SPI-135) (Condon, 2017), which allowed & Ram, 2016). These indices – marking the variability, in- us to calculate scores on both the Big Five traits as well as stability, and inertia of psychological states – have been 27 narrow, unidimensional traits. The Big Five are widely applied at the person-level to understand manifestations used for the assessment of personality though often criti- of personality disorders (Wright & Simms, 2016) and other cized for being overly-broad (Condon et al., 2021; Mõttus Collabra: Psychology 2 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article-pdf/7/1/30140/486657/collabra_2021_7_1_30140.pdf by guest on 13 July 2022 Personality States of the Union et al., 2020), whereas the assessment of more narrow traits, sociated with both indices discussed herein, while Consci- including Sociability, can paint a more nuanced picture of entiousness was unrelated. the ways in which personality is (or is not) changing and fluctuating in the United States during the COVID-19 pan- Results demic. While this measure can be scored to generate esti- Changes in personality traits mates for each of the broad Big Five traits and 27 narrow traits, we pre-registered our analyses for this study to focus To assess the degree to which national personality has on the Big Five trait of Neuroticism and the five narrow changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we compared per- traits most highly correlated with Neuroticism: Adaptabil- sonality in the months following the declaration of the na- ity, Anxiety, Emotional Stability, Irritability, and Well Be- tional emergency (March 13-June 1, 2020) to personality ing. As with other hierarchical frameworks for measuring in the months preceding the declaration (January 1-March personality, the scores within each level of the hierarchy are 12, 2020). Change in personality traits from before to after independent and the scores across levels of the hierarchy the national emergency declaration are shown in Figure 1. are somewhat dependent. In other words, some of the ques- After March 13, we see increases in Extraversion and re- tions used to derive Neuroticism estimates (at the level of lated narrow traits, including Humor, Sociability, Sensation the broad Big Five dimensions) are also used for one (but Seeking, and Attention Seeking. Such change is surprising, not more than one) of the narrow 27 traits lower down in as this suggests that scores for social traits increased, on the hierarchy. average, in the sample under social distancing and lock- Each person’s Big Five trait scores were calculated by down orders. Though the underlying mechanism is unclear taking the average response to the 14 items in each trait given the cross-sectional nature of these data, it is unlikely scale (αN = 0.90; αE = 0.88; αA = 85; αC = 0.86; αO that changes in these traits reflect changes in daily behav- = 0.80). Because the narrow traits are unidimensional, we iors, as the opportunities for socializing and pursuing sen- used IRT-scoring to estimate person scores on those traits, sation- and attention-seeking behaviors were more limited providing more precise estimates than a traditional sum than usual. Alternative explanations follow directly from score approach. Reliability for IRT-scored scales is best con- the deprivation of these opportunities. Perhaps the lock- veyed through test information curves as shown in Figures down prompted higher rates of participation from more ex- S1-5 (see osf.io/6anw7). Cronbach’s alphas are not typically traverted individuals, or the deprivation of lockdown appropriate in this case, but we note that they ranged from changed respondents’ self-appraisals, on average, with re- a low of .66 (Easy-Goingness) to a high of .90 (Well Being). spect to the restricted behaviors. Notable increases in Com- All trait measures were T-scored (scaled to a mean of 50 and passion and Art Appreciation support the latter interpre- a standard deviation of 10) for ease of interpretation. tation more than the former, as these were also affected We estimate national personality at the daily level by ag- by lockdown restrictions (e.g., going to museums, believing gregating responses from all participants who provided data in the importance of art) and fear of contagion (e.g., con- on a given day (Nper day ranged from 18 to 282, with an av- cern about others, sympathy for those who are worse off). erage of 111.14). In addition, we weighted responses by par- In other words, we may not think of ourselves as extraverts ticipant characteristics – age, gender, race, and education and art aficionados until we are prohibited from social gath- – using raked weights (Lu & Gelman, 2003) derived using erings and cultural events. We also note observed decreases U.S. Census data, in an effort to maximize sample similar- in Emotional Stability (e.g., feeling overwhelmed by emo- ity across days and also better represent the population of tions, strong changes in mood) and Authoritarianism (e.g., the nation. In order to reduce systematic variance due to bi- respecting authority, following rules). ased participation by time (e.g., perhaps introverts are more To account for the possibility that these changes may be likely to participate on weekends), we calculated a seven- subject to seasonal fluctuation independent of the national day smoothed average, thereby eliminating day-of-week ef- emergency, we computed the amount of change across the fects. same period in 2019 (i.e., change in average daily personal- We also included daily indices of the country’s physical ity from January 1, 2019 through March 12, 2019 and March and financial health. Here, we report analyses using the 13, 2019 to June 1, 2019) and 2018 (change from January S&P 500 closing price and daily COVID-19 cases, as re- 1-March 12 to March 13-June 1), as well as the difference ported by The New York Times. We also examined the cor- in change. These results are depicted in Supplementary Ma- relations of personality states with daily deaths from terial Figures S12-13. We found little evidence of national COVID-19, 10-year treasury bond rates, and stock market personality trait change in the equivalent time period in volatility (VIX); these results were similar to what is pre- 2019; after adjusting for multiple comparisons, only two of sented here, and corresponding figures can be found in the 32 traits (Introspection and Attention Seeking) were sig- Supplemental Materials (Figures S6-8). nificantly different in the spring 2019 compared to winter These analyses were pre-registered (osf.io/ypbfn) and 2019. However, six trait change estimates were significant hypotheses were specified for affective traits (i.e., Neuroti- in 2018. (Eight were significant in 2020.) We note that traits cism and related narrow traits). We note here that the pre- which changed in 2018 were largely different from those registration was for data collected through June 1. Given the that changed in 2020 (Agreeableness, Orderliness, Intellect, time required to complete the analyses, we chose to extend and Trust decreased, while Impulsivity increased). Common correlation analyses through December, so as to estimate to both years, Emotional Stability decreased from Winter to more generalizable and timely effect sizes. In a prior itera- Spring. Moreover, comparisons of trait change using stan- tion of these analyses, trait Sociability was also strongly as- dardized effect sizes suggest that change during 2020 for Collabra: Psychology 3 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article-pdf/7/1/30140/486657/collabra_2021_7_1_30140.pdf by guest on 13 July 2022 Personality States of the Union traits Extraversion (d = 0.93), Humor (d = 1.22), and So- ciability (d = 0.83) – as well as Art Appreciation (d = 1.07) – were quite large by comparison to 2018. Overall, these analyses suggest that daily national personality levels did change after the declaration of the national emergency, and that these changes were not merely expected seasonal changes. Change analyses yielded two surprising results: (1) in- creases in social traits, discussed above, and (2) a lack of change in trait Neuroticism and related narrow traits, in- cluding Anxiety and Well-Being (the exception being de- creases in Emotional Stability). Given the focus on mental health during social distancing, the lack of change in these traits was unexpected and suggested that the use of two time-points for change analyses poorly represents the real- world processes of change. Perhaps levels of Anxiety and Neuroticism increase just before and/or after the start of the national emergency, but as American citizens become accustomed to their new daily lives, these traits return to baseline. Or perhaps various large-scale events push and pull these traits in different directions. Rising case counts, for example, may lead to increases in anxiety, while federal stimulus bills lead to decreases. In other words, while there may not be significant overall differences between winter and spring, we may see significant fluctuations in traits in the year 2020. Expanding beyond spring, there were a num- ber of large-scale events which had the potential to impact at least subsets of the population. To explore this possibility further, we created several ex- ploratory figures, representing the 7-day rolling average of trait levels across the year. These figures also include the dates of key events during 2020, such as the killing of George Floyd, the start of the school year, and the presiden- Figure 1. Change in national personality traits after tial election. Figure 2 shows the national trends for Anxi- declaration of national emergency (March 13, 2020) ety, and figures for the other traits are included in the sup- Bars represent the standardized amount of change in daily personality states; er- plementary material (Figures S14-S20). In Figure 2, we see ror bars are 95% confidence intervals. Stars represent statistical significance af- some evidence that large events impacted national person- ter adjusting p-values for multiple comparisons using a Holm correction; ** p < .01, *** p < .001. ality. For example, the presidential election coincided with the highest levels of Anxiety, while in prior years, Anxiety was below average levels during this time of year. In addi- differences in amounts of variance. Inertia results, on the tion, Anxiety tended to be high throughout the Fall of 2020, other hands, are in a standardized format. perhaps due to both the political election and instability in As can be seen in Figure 3A, national traits had similar school openings. However, we do not see similar trends in levels of variance across days, suggesting that traits devi- Anxiety coinciding with the killing of George Floyd or the ated from the country’s average level to the same extent. summer of protests. Overall, these figures present mixed Traits were scored at the person-level such that all traits evidence for the impact of national events on national per- had a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. When ag- sonality. gregated to the day level, we see an expected reduction in variability, although not equally across traits. Conscien- Fluctuations in personality traits tiousness and Openness were the most variable of the Big Five, although not statistically significantly so. We interpret We examine the daily fluctuations of personality states these results to suggest that personality traits, broad and using a dynamics approach (Ong & Ram, 2016). Through narrow, were relatively similar in terms of their variability this approach, we assess three indices of fluctuation: vari- across days. That is, no one trait was unchanging. Yet while ability, instability, and inertia. For all analyses, we use the traits were similar in their levels of variability, there were weighted daily averages (not smoothed), in order to avoid notable differences in instability, or the amplitude and ten- artifactual results; we use all days from January 1 through dency with which national personality was likely to change December 31. We caution against comparing broad traits to from one day to the next (see Figure 3B). Instability was narrow ones in the analyses of variability and instability, measured using the mean square successive difference (Ong given that broad traits were assessed with a greater number & Ram, 2016). Large values of instability suggest that, from of items that are less highly correlated. These differences in one day to the next, national personality levels are likely psychometric properties may contribute systematically to to change and the magnitude of this change is large. Take Collabra: Psychology 4 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article-pdf/7/1/30140/486657/collabra_2021_7_1_30140.pdf by guest on 13 July 2022 Personality States of the Union Figure 2. Weekly levels of anxiety The red line depicts the weekly average of anxiety in 2020, while the blue line represents the weekly average across 2018 and 2019. Daily personality means were calculated using population weights, and then T-scored compared to all data (2018-2019). Key events in 2020 are plotted as well, to aid the interpretation of fluctuations in personality levels and discrepancies from prior years. The shaded ribbons represent the 95% confidence interval; standard errors were calculated from the daily weighted variance (weighted according to population census weights), pooled, and divided by the square root of the total number of participants. for example, Attention Seeking; this was the least stable of ven by the use of a cross-sectional study, in which sampling the narrow traits. If Attention Seeking is high on a Tues- error may, even after weighting, obscure some group-level day, we would not be surprised to see it drop precipitously trends. on Wednesday or bounce back again on Thursday. Com- pare this to Sociability. If Sociability is high on Thursday, Trait fluctuations associated with national health we would expect it to be high on Friday. A note of cau- tion that these effect sizes are unstandardized, so cutoffs Our results suggest that some national personality traits for “high” and “low” instability are difficult to estimate. changed since the national emergency was declared, and Rather, we suggest the relative comparison of traits is more that even for traits which did not change, there were fluc- informative. The pattern of instability suggests that inter- tuations in national personality states during 2020. It re- personal traits are the most variable. Consider that Atten- mains to be seen whether these fluctuations are meaningful tion Seeking showed great instability, followed by Adapt- or reflected in other aspects of national activity. To evaluate ability and Humor. On the other hand, Honesty, Intellect, this, we examine the associations between personality Emotional Stability, and Introspection were more stable. states and other indices of national economic and public This pattern suggests important day-to-day changes in in- health. More specifically, we examined the correlations be- terpersonal traits, perhaps reflecting changing attitudes tween daily personality states and daily new cases of about socializing, or perhaps even changing attitudes about COVID-19 and the closing prices of the S&P 500. communality with fellow Americans, as social and political The 7-day moving averages for all affective traits were events became increasingly divisive during 2020. associated with one or more of the physical health and fi- Finally, we examine the inertia of personality states (Fig- nancial indicators (see Figure 4 for correlations with ure 3C), as measured by the autocorrelation (Ong & Ram, COVID-19 cases and Figure 5 for correlations with financial 2016), or the correlation of trait levels one day with the markets). Trait Neuroticism was strongly associated with next. Inertia is similar to instability (in the opposite direc- both outcomes – increases in both daily COVID-19 cases tion), in that it indexes the likelihood of change from one and, perhaps surprisingly, S&P500 closing prices. Corre- day to the next. However, unlike instability, it does not ac- spondingly, there are large positive correlations between count for the amplitude of change. None of the inertia esti- these outcomes and Anxiety and Irritability, and negative mates were significantly different from zero, in part driven associations with Well-Being and Adaptability. Counter-in- by the lower power of this study to detect effects smaller tuitively, Easy-goingness was also positively associated than r = .10; in other words, there was no evidence that the with COVID-19 cases and the S&P closing prices, although nation persisted in specific personality states across multi- we note that this trait is somewhat more reflective of low ple days. In combination with the instability analyses, the industriousness than emotion generally. inertia findings suggest that personality traits are likely to fluctuate from day to day. However, this may also be dri- Collabra: Psychology 5 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article-pdf/7/1/30140/486657/collabra_2021_7_1_30140.pdf by guest on 13 July 2022 Personality States of the Union Figure 3. Personality state dynamics Bars represent bias corrected and accelerated 95% confidence intervals estimated using bootstrapping. a. Variability in personality states. Bars represent the standard deviation of the national daily states; the standard deviation value is also printed next to the bar. Longer bars (higher values) indicate greater levels of variability. b. Instability in national states, as measured using the mean square of successive difference (MSSD) from one day to the next. Bars present the value of the MSSD. Longer bars indicate greater instability, which captures both the tendency to change and change amplitude. c. Inertia in national states, as measured using the autocorrelation. Positive values indicate that on any day, the nation is more likely than not to be in a similar state as the day before, while negative values indicate that the nation is more likely to have changed. Collabra: Psychology 6 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article-pdf/7/1/30140/486657/collabra_2021_7_1_30140.pdf by guest on 13 July 2022 Personality States of the Union Conscientiousness was negatively associated with both outcomes, which may correspond to the generally positive relationship of this trait with health outcomes (Bogg & Roberts, 2004; Weston et al., 2015) and also its association with risk avoidance (Ehsani et al., 2015; Hampson et al., 2000). Extraversion and associated lower traits (including Sociability, Humor, Charisma) were negatively associated with new COVID-19 cases and S&P prices, suggesting an overall decrease in Extraversion during the year. Discussion In summary, the present research found evidence for change in national personality traits after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically increases in trait Extra- version and associated narrow traits (e.g., Sociability, Hu- mor, and Sensation Seeking). Fluctuations in social traits were also associated with increased numbers of new daily COVID-19 cases and drops in the S&P500, suggesting that these changes and fluctuations in national personality are connected with larger psychological processes that impact both daily lives and long-term outcomes for the country. There was no supporting evidence that these changes were Figure 4. Correlation of traits with indices of driven by annual or seasonal changes. While it remains a pandemic severity (January 1 – December 31, 2020) possibility that some or all of this change was driven by a Brackets contain 95% confidence intervals. shift in sampling characteristics (i.e., lockdowns increased the likelihood that more extraverted individuals partici- pated in the survey because they could no longer socialize), other changes during the lockdown period suggest that more substantive factors were involved. These changes in- clude increases in Art Appreciation, Compassion, and Emo- tional Expressiveness, and decreases in Emotional Stability and Authoritarianism. Changes in these traits are less read- ily explained by shifts in participant sampling than the cir- cumstantial factors of pandemic-induced restrictions and suffering. Mean-level increases in affective traits (e.g., Neuroti- cism) were not found, but analysis of personality state dy- namics revealed substantial instability in daily national state Neuroticism and related traits, such as Well-Being, Anxiety, and Irritability. These fluctuations are meaningful (i.e., not simple sampling error), as evidenced by their sub- stantial correlations with other national indices, though challenging to interpret with respect to personality theory. One explanation is methodological. Consistent with recog- nition that affective traits are more labile than other per- sonality traits (Gross et al., 1998), the appropriate time frame for assessing change in these traits is likely distinc- tion from the months-long window used to compare trends Figure 5. Correlation of traits with indices of before and after the lockdown. financial markets (January 1 – December 31, 2020) These findings shed light on another methodological is- Brackets contain 95% confidence intervals. sue as well. Unlike short-term fluctuations in the affective traits, mean-level changes in social traits during the lock- down run counter to expectations based on the behavioral tracking changes over time (Baugh et al., 2021) would be or “act frequency” conception of traits (Buss & Craik, 1983). substantially improved by the inclusion of informant-re- Mean self-ratings increased due to the deprivation of op- ports as a means of distinguishing these deprivation effects portunities to engage in social behaviors, whether due to from changes in behavioral frequency. The collection of in- a change in the make-up of respondents and/or increased formant-reports should be prioritized in subsequent re- self-appraisals of social tendencies. This highlights the search on changes in personality at the national level. merits of informant-reports with respect to convergent va- This study adds to the growing literature on regional per- lidity. The use of national indices of personality traits for sonality (Rentfrow et al., 2008), especially national person- Collabra: Psychology 7 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article-pdf/7/1/30140/486657/collabra_2021_7_1_30140.pdf by guest on 13 July 2022 Personality States of the Union ality, by being among the first to consider how national per- transfer of power. While the United States has been trou- sonality changes over short intervals and in response to a bled by public health, political, and civil emergencies in the significant global crisis. Our work points to the utility of past, we cannot think of a time when we have grappled with measures of narrow traits in this field, as the narrow and all three simultaneously. Moreover, the Internet and social unidimensional state fluctuations were those most highly media have connected the average citizen to these issues correlated with daily national outcomes. Future research with more regularity and intimacy than ever before. With should examine the associations of daily fluctuations in na- that in mind, we do not view the current study as an attempt tional personality with other metrics of import to econo- to find the definitive and context-independent associations mists, public health advisors, and others who work in pol- between personality fluctuations and outcomes, but rather icy, to understand the psychological underpinnings of these a demonstration that change and fluctuations in nation- outcomes. Moreover, additional work should seek to model level personality are meaningful, informative, and worthy the underlying causal processes; it remains unknown of consideration by researchers and policymakers alike. whether fluctuations in traits cause these outcomes or are Importantly, the cross-sectional design of the current reflections of other processes. work is a significant limitation. Given this design, we can- Changes and fluctuations in Humor speak to the pos- not make strong claims about personality change within sibility of the bidirectional processes. We propose that individuals, nor can we say definitively that the findings changes in traits provide insight into how a nation chooses herein are not driven by a shift in sampling characteristics to react to emergencies. Humor is used to facilitate inter- during this period. To do so would require either large- personal relationships (Ziv, 2010); compare the relatively scale longitudinal data collection with high frequency as- higher levels of humor during the spring of 2020 to the low sessments or, in cross-sectional data, carefully randomized levels in the fall and winter. Humor rose when the nation sampling of participants to reduce the potential of bias due faced an emergency that was perceived to affect all its cit- to “opt-in” participation. izens. It can be argued that no person’s life was untouched While much attention has been paid to the well-being by the pandemic, at least in terms of day-to-day routines. of the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the present However, as the summer approached, it became apparent research points to the importance and utility of national that all citizens were not affected equally. By the time of personality as a focus of study. Our findings suggest that the presidential election, American citizens were no longer national personality is impermanent, and that fluctuations fighting a pandemic together, but fighting each other for in personality states are meaningfully linked to important control of the federal government. Correspondingly, Humor outcomes. Future research may be able to harness this in- – and attempts to build community – plummeted. formation for better understanding of national health and The current study only examines change through De- psychology-informed policy intervention cember 31, so a remaining question is the extent to which the observed changes in national personality are lasting. However, regardless of the long-term impact on personality, even short-term changes in these traits may have substan- Author Contributions tial impact on national outcomes, given the associations between daily fluctuations and other indices. Especially if Contributed to conception and design: DMC, SJW there is evidence that some personality states cause out- Contributed to acquisition of data: DMC, SJW comes (rather than the other way around), even changes Contributed to analysis and interpretation of data: SJW, lasting a week or only a few days could have repercussions DMC lasting months or years. For example, it was notable to Drafted and/or revised the article: SJW, DMC see no change in affective traits (Neuroticism, Anxiety, Approved the submitted version for publication: DMC, etcetera) over longer intervals, but to see substantial short- SJW term instability in these traits and strong associations with national indices of health. Competing Interests Statistical power in this study was limited by the length of data collection (Ndays = 366 days in 2020), despite the Authors have no known conflicts of interest to disclose. large number of participants who provided data. While Data Accessibility Statement greater statistical power could be achieved by widening the time frame, we believe that days outside this time period Pre-registration of this work can be accessed through the constitute a different population from the days of interest Open Science Framework (OSF) at https://osf.io/ypbfn. to this study, at least with regard to historical years. The year 2020 was a unique time in the nation’s history, with Submitted: October 19, 2021 PST, Accepted: November 22, major news related to (1) the COVID-19 pandemic, the na- tional emergency, and state-ordered lockdowns, (2) social 2021 PST unrest and injustice, and (3) a major political election in which a sitting president refused to support a peaceful This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CCBY-4.0). 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