Antisocial traits linked to non-compliance of COVID-19 restrictions: study - Antisocial traits linked to non-compliance of COVID-19 restrictions: study

As countries continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic at various stages of its outbreak and with public health systems already overstretched, it becomes all the more imperative to follow all the rules of prevention and precaution to keep individuals and their respective families safe from contracting this respiratory disease.

After all, several accounts have spoken of conditions such as Long COVID, which refers to patients suffering from symptoms or lasting damage to the body from the coronavirus long after they have tested negative or passed fit by hospitals. New cases have also emerged of reinfection among patients, making it a stubborn disease to get rid of.

And yet, there are groups of people voicing their opinion against the use of masks or following other rules in public, which many health authorities have mandated citizens to follow.

As the medical and scientific community continues its search for a vaccine that can put an end to this pandemic, global organisations like the WHO and other leading healthcare institutions have been issuing guidelines to countries around the world for the safety and security of their people.

While most people around the world have been following the measures put in place, many are opposed to the regulations.

The study which was conducted by Brazilian researchers included 1,578 adults in the country between the ages of 18 and 73 years, who answered the various aspects of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5, also known as PID-5, the affective resonance factor of Affective and Cognitive Measure of Empathy (ACME), and answered a questionnaire about their compliance with containment measures.

Read more: Mental illness

A latent profile analysis - a study done to identify subpopulations based on a certain set of variables - was conducted to analyse the personality traits and which set of groups they fit in among each other. The study was conducted between May and June 2020.

The results of the LPA showed two distinct personalities emerge, with a group scoring higher in traits such as irresponsibility, callousness, hostility, deceitfulness, impulsivity, manipulativeness and risk-taking. 

The antisocial traits revealed in the analysis went along with lower levels of empathy among the people, and were directly linked with a considerably lower compliance with the containment measures imposed in lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as personal hygiene, physical distancing as well as wearing of masks or face covers.

Participants who had a higher degree of empathy also turned out to comply with the containment rules issued by public health officials in the country.

It must be remembered that Brazil, where the study was conducted, is the third worst hit country in the world with more than 4.1 million infections and over 126,000 deaths.

The researchers concluded that the study could be critical in formulating future policies around public health and how these traits can be addressed through appropriate interventions and creating awareness about the importance of these containment measures.

Numerous studies looking at the reasons of COVID-19 mortalities have suggested that men are at a higher risk of dying from complications of this viral infection, with data from several countries also indicating the same.

Another study available on the preprint server PsyArXiv since the month of May was conducted by researchers from Middlesex University and Berkeley, included 2,500 people in their survey. They found that men were less likely to wear face masks in comparison to women, as they found the measure to be "shameful, not cool, a sign of weakness and a stigma".

Despite all the data being available suggesting men being more likely to not only contract the infection but also suffer from severe complications of the disease, men surveyed in the study also believed they were less likely to be affected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Dr Valerio Capraro, one of the leading researchers in the study, told the BBC that the act of not wearing masks was more commonly seen in counties where wearing masks was not mandatory. However, the balance was still maintained in countries or areas that have made mask wearing mandatory.