Young Adults Have Become More Neurotic And Sensitive To Stress Following The Pandemic, New Study Suggests

Young adults may have become more disagreeable and more neurotic as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Less extroverted, more disagreeable and more sensitive to stress are some of the outcomes in young adults that may have been caused by the pandemic, a new survey published in the journal PLOS One suggests, NBC News reports.

More than 7,100 adults participated in the study, which was conducted from January 2021 to February 2022. The results were then compared to participants’ responses from earlier in the pandemic, between March 2020 to December 2020. The survey was centered around the Big Five traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

The research showed people’s personalities shifted greatly during the pandemic, leading study authors to believe people’s dispositions have been impacted over time due to pandemic-related stress, NBC News reports.

“Becoming more mature is declining in neuroticism and increasing in agreeableness and conscientiousness, and we see the opposite for younger adults in the second year of the pandemic,” said Angelina Sutin, the study’s lead author.