Why young people are now moodier since the Covid pandemic

Young people have become more neurotic and difficult since the coronavirus pandemic, a study has suggested.

Previous studies have generally found no association between stressful events and the impact on a person's personality, such as earthquakes and hurricanes.

But researchers from Florida State University College of Medicine believe the pandemic has changed the way we think, feel and behave.

The study, published in the journal Plos One, found younger adults have been most affected and have become more neurotic, more prone to stress and less cooperative.

The researchers assessed the personalities of 7,109 people, ranging from the ages of 18 to 109, enrolled in the online Understanding America Study. They analysed a total of 18,523 personality assessments, a mean average of 2.62 per participant.

They compared how traits such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness differed in three periods - May 2014 to Feb 2020, before Covid; the early part of the pandemic between March and Dec 2020; and the pandemic's later period from 2021 to 2022.

Younger adults became 'less cooperative'

Consistent with other studies, there were relatively few changes between the pre-pandemic and 2020 personality traits, with only a small decline in neuroticism.

However, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness all declined when 2021-22 data was compared with people’s personalities pre-pandemic.

The changes were equivalent to how a person's personality changes normally over a 10-year period, said the researchers.

Younger adults showed increased neuroticism and decreased agreeableness and conscientiousness, while the oldest group of adults showed no statistically significant changes in traits.

The authors concluded that if these changes last, it suggests that population-wide stressful events can slightly bend the trajectory of personality development, especially in younger adults.

“There was limited personality change early in the pandemic but striking changes starting in 2021,” said the authors.

“Of most note, the personality of young adults changed the most, with marked increases in neuroticism and declines in agreeableness and conscientiousness. That is, younger adults became moodier and more prone to stress, less cooperative and trusting, and less restrained and responsible.”