Facing the Pandemic in Italy: Personality Profiles and Their Associations With Adaptive and Maladaptive Outcomes

Abstract

The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals’ psychosocial functioning was widely attested during the last year. However, the extent to which individual differences are associated with adaptive and maladaptive outcomes during quarantine in Italy remains largely unexplored. Using a person-oriented approach, the present study explored the association of personality profiles, based on three broad individual dispositions (i.e., positivity, irritability, and hostile rumination) and two self-efficacy beliefs in the emotional area (i.e., expressing positive emotions and regulating anger emotion), with adaptive and maladaptive outcomes during the first Italian lockdown (March–June 2020). In doing so, we focused also on how different age groups (i.e., young adults and adults) differently faced the pandemic. The study was conducted through an online survey from May to June 2020 and included 1341 participants living in Italy, divided into two groups: 737 young adults aged 18–35 and 604 adults aged 36–60 years old. Latent Profile Analysis identified three personality profiles: resilient, vulnerable, and moderate. A subsequent path analysis model showed that the resilient profile was positively associated with prosocial behavior as an indicator of adaptive outcome, and negatively associated with three maladaptive outcomes: interpersonal aggression, depressive symptoms, and anxiety problems. Contrarily, the vulnerable profile resulted negatively associated with prosocial behavior and positively associated with the three maladaptive outcomes. Finally, regarding age group differences, young adults belonging to the vulnerable profile showed a greater association especially with interpersonal aggression, depression, and anxiety problems, as compared to adults belonging to the same profile. Overall, the results of the present study highlighted the importance to analyze individual functioning during an isolation period by using a person-oriented approach. Findings evidenced the existence of three different profiles (i.e., Resilient, Vulnerable, and Moderate) and subsequent path analysis revealed, especially for the vulnerable profile and young adults, a greater maladaptive consequence of the quarantine. The practical implications will be discussed.

How COVID-19 Information Fear of Missing out Increases the Risk of Depression and Anxiety: Roles of Resilience and Personality Types

“…In addition, previous research on personality types has shown that resilients seem to be generally well-adjusted in many respects (e.g., high life satisfaction and prosocial behavior, low levels of psychological distress, and few mental health problems), while both overcontrollers and undercontrollers seem to be less well-adjusted [8,42,43]. That is, resilients have the highest levels of resilience and the lowest levels of depression and anxiety among people with the three personality types.…”

“…Specifically, in terms of the direct effects, for undercontrollers, the relationships between COVID-19 information FOMO and depression and anxiety were strongest compared with the overcontrolled and adaptive groups. A possible explanation for this is that undercontrollers are at risk of the co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing problems, while the adaptive group tends to have more prosocial behavior and less depression and anxiety [8,9,36,42]. Additionally, in terms of the indirect effects, only undercontrollers reported the indirect effects, while adaptive and overcontrolled groups reported no significant indirect effects.…”