Big Five personality traits and vaccination: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: Despite the proven benefits of vaccination, people differ in their willingness to get vaccinated. These differences are the result of multiple factors, including social, cultural, and psychological variables. This meta-analysis estimated the effects of people’s Big Five personality traits on their vaccination attitudes, intentions, and behaviors and examined the role of theoretically and empirically derived moderator variables. Methods: We meta-analyzed data from 28 studies that sampled over 48,000 individuals to estimate the effects of Big Five personality traits on vaccination attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. In addition, we tested the moderating effects of age, gender, sample region, sample type (representative vs. convenience), vaccination measure (attitude, intention, behavior, compound), vaccination type (COVID-19, Influenza, or other), and reliability of the Big Five measure on the links between personality traits and vaccination.Results: People with high levels in agreeableness and extraversion, and low levels in neuroticism reported more positive attitudes towards vaccination, while open people reported stronger intentions to get vaccinated. Open and agreeable people were also more positive about novel COVID-19 vaccines, whereas extraverted people were more positive about Influenza vaccines. There were no effects for conscientiousness. Overall, effect sizes were small but generalized across age. Other moderator effects suggested a more nuanced picture across cultural regions, sample types, and gender. Conclusions: The findings provide a compelling picture of significant, albeit small, effects of personality traits on vaccination. Questions remain about the processes through which personality traits may affect vaccination attitudes, intentions, and potentially also behavior.