Personality traits and mental health outcomes: the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on young adults in the UK

Akker, Ruben van den; Hammad, Nour; Marin, Alexandre

Personality traits and mental health outcomes: the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on young adults in the UK

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Akker, R, Hammad, N, Marin, A. Personality traits and mental health outcomes: the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on young adults in the UK. 2021. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/49205

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Abstract

Mental health outcomes significantly deteriorated in the United Kingdom as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly for younger individuals. This paper uses data from the Millennium Cohort Study to investigate the heterogeneity of mental health effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on adolescents by both personality types and personality traits. Using two-step cluster analysis we find three robust personality clusters: resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled. We find that resilient individuals, who generally have better mental health, reported larger decreases in mental health during the pandemic than both undercontrollers and overcontrollers. The effect seems to be driven by the neuroticism trait, such that those with higher neuroticism scores fared better than those with lower scores during the pandemic. Our findings highlight that personality traits are important factors in identifying stress-prone individuals during a pandemic.

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Treball fi de màster de: Master's Degree in Specialized Economic Analysis: Economics of Public Policy. Curs 2020-2021
Directors: Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Hannes Mueller