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

As lockdown restrictions have eased or lifted in a majority of the countries around the world, the COVID-19 crisis continues to make global headlines thanks to the daily numbers of new cases and rising death toll. As of 7 September, 2020, more than 27 million people have been affected by the new coronavirus infection, and nearly 890,000 people have died from it.

It has already been established that preventive measures such as physical distancing, following basic standards of personal hygiene and wearing masks or face covers have been helpful in keeping the numbers from ballooning even more.

The strongest support to these preventive measures came from a study in the Lancet in June, which concluded after analysing as many as 172 other studies that the risks of contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus were greatly reduced thanks to these precuations. Preventive measures also included the use of eye shields as later studies were also able to establish how the SARS-CoV-2 virus could also enter from the eyes to infect a person.

Read more: How does COVID-19 spread

China was the country where the disease is believed to have originated from late last year in Wuhan, and the scientists investigating the disease came back with the overwhelming conclusion to follow these precautions to stop it from spreading any further. It was part of the reason why the country was able to control the rapid spread of the disease, by imposing non-pharmaceutical strategies such as isolation, quarantine and institutional lockdowns.

However, news emerging from other parts of the world has suggested that scores of people have been against the use of masks, face covers, face shields and other precautionary measures.

A study looking into this aspect of some individuals' refusal to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic and antisocial behaviour has recently been published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Against containment measures despite the risk
Low level of empathy and disregard for public health measures
Men in general do not like to wear masks

Against containment measures despite the risk

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.

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Low level of empathy and disregard for public health measures

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.

Men in general do not like to wear masks

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.