On the relationship between personality traits and loneliness in the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

There is a suspicion that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected levels of loneliness in the Netherlands. Pre-pandemic research indicates a link between certain personality traits and social- and emotional loneliness-development. This paper explored if the pandemic produced any noticeable changes in this relationship. Longitudinal data provided by the Dutch LISSpanel (n=4180) was analyzed to assess the relationship between personality traits and the 2020 scores for the two types of loneliness (while controlling for 2019 scores of loneliness and known covariates). For social loneliness in 2020 the overall regression was statistically significant (R2 =.445, F (12, 4167) = 278.785, p < .001). Agreeableness (β = -.261, p = .001), conscientiousness (β = -.209, p = .007), extraversion (β = -.048, p < .001) neuroticism (β = .102, p < .001) and an interaction of agreeableness and conscientiousness (β = .323, p = .008) were found to be significant predictors. For emotional loneliness in 2020 the overall regression model was statistically significant (R2 = .406, F (12, 4167) = 237.084, p < .001). Agreeableness (β = -.178, p = .024), conscientiousness (β = -.236, p = .003), neuroticism (β = .163, p < .001) and the interaction between agreeableness and conscientiousness (β = .338, p= .008) were found to be significant predictors. Extraversion (β = -.011, p = .400) was not significantly associated with changes in emotional loneliness.While the majority of personality traits significantly predicted changes in social and emotional loneliness, the amount of additional explained variance by these traits was fairly small (ϪR2 = .019 for social loneliness, ϪR2 = .025 for emotional loneliness). This was probably due to the research controlling for the previous years’ loneliness scores. This research did, however, unveil the necessity for loneliness research to analyze social and emotional loneliness separately.