Sociopaths More Likely To Resist Mask Requirement And Other COVID-19 Containment Measures, Study Finds

While the world is struggling to tackle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, face mask resistance is on the rise. Individuals who resist adherence to such preventative measures taken to curb the spread of COVID-19, display higher levels of traits linked to antisocial personality disorder pointed out a new study.

Ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus to be a global pandemic, governments throughout the world urged the public to follow preventive measures like sporting face coverings, frequent hand washing, and physical distancing.

While some people are more likely than others to comply with containment measures, the cases of people resisting face mask requirements still continue to be reported. Previous studies pointed out that personality traits especially antisocial and empathy play a crucial role in adhering to containment measures.

Researchers from Brazil sought to investigate the relationship between antisocial traits and compliance with containment measures. They found that individuals who had trouble adhering to preventative measures taken to contain COVID-19 had lower levels of empathy and higher levels of personality traits like callousness, deceitfulness, and risk-taking. Their findings are published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study focused on COVID-19 compliance with the containment measures and antisocial traits to be conducted in a large Latin American sample using a repeated cross-sectional design," said the researchers in their paper published in the Personality and Individual Differences.

The researchers recruited 1578 Brazilians aged 18 and above who were assessed for their maladaptive personality traits, empathy, and compliance with measures taken to curb disease outbreaks between May 21 and June 29, 2020.

They found those study participants who scored higher on measures of hostility, impulsivity, callousness, manipulativeness, and risk-taking appeared to be less compliant with COVID-19 containment measures like wearing a face mask in public, social distancing, and washing hands frequently. Study participants who were highly empathetic were found to be more compliant with the virus containment measures.

The researchers highlighted that compliance with containment measures varied greatly between individuals and that it was associated with psychological factors like personality traits. They hypothesized that higher levels of antisocial traits and lower levels of empathy were associated with difficulty in adhering to these virus combating measures.

"Our findings indicated that antisocial traits, especially lower levels of empathy and higher levels of Callousness and Risk-taking, are directly associated with compliance with containment measures," said the researchers in their paper published in the Personality and Individual Differences.

"These traits explain, at least partially, the reason why people continue not adhering to the containment measures even with the increasing numbers of cases and deaths," they concluded.