The study, a peer-reviewed pre-print that will soon be published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, asked 502 people to answer questions online about how often they followed coronavirus pandemic health guidelines, if they planned to follow guidelines going forward, and what they'd do if they were diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The researchers also asked personality-related questions to determine where survey participants fell on scales for conscientiousness, cooperativeness, neuroticism, tendency to take risks, meanness, and lack of restraint.
If participants answered questions in a manner that suggested they had low levels of neuroticism, tendency to take risks, meanness, and lack of restraint, they were more likely to follow social distancing guidelines, but if they scored high in these traits, they were less likely to follow guidelines.
Study author Pavel Blagov said these traits are also common psychopathic traits.
"I knew that traits from the so-called Dark Triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy), as well as the traits subsumed within psychopathy, are linked to health risk behavior and health problems, and I expected them to be implicated in health behaviors during the pandemic," Blagov told PsyPost.
Indeed, his study suggested a small correlation between psychopathic traits and disregard for pandemic public health policies does exist.
Blagov said the majority of survey participants said they followed coronavirus health guidelines. But those who didn't follow guidelines answered the survey questions in a manner that suggested they knowingly and purposefully ignored the safety advice.
For example, study participants who scored high on traits like meanness and lack of restraint also said they didn't follow social distancing and hygiene practices like hand-washing.
Blagov said these findings are concerning from a public-health perspective.