Research Report on Personality Traits and Mask Wearing
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Course
Research Methods (PSYC1090)
Institution
De Montfort University (DMU)
A 1900 word research report covering on the relationship between personality and masking wearing for the 'Research Methods' module in 1st year psychology.
Titled: 'The relationship between agreeableness and mask wearing'
Reference list and graph diagrams included.
The Relationship Between Agreeableness and
Mask Wearing
This study was conducted to investigate the possible relationship between the personality trait of
agreeableness, as theorised as part of the Big Five personality model (Goldberg, 1992), and the
compliance to wearing a face mask due to the COVID-19 rules set out by the UK government on 24 th
July 2020 during the first national lockdown. Several previous studies have influenced the further
investigation into this, such studies being ones by Zajenkowski et al (2020) and the UCL COVID-19
Social Study (2021). The Alternative hypothesis was that there is a positive relationship between the
variables; ‘as agreeableness increases so does the wearing of face masks’ and with the null being
that there is no relation between the variables, it is just down to chance. However, the findings do
suggest that the alternative hypothesis is rejected as there was no positive correlation but a
significant negative correlation between the variables, suggesting that compliance to wearing a face
mask goes down as agreeableness goes up.
The research was set out in order to answer the question of; ‘what is the relationship
between participants’ agreeableness and compliance to wearing a face mask?’ This is in response to
the national lockdowns the UK has been put under throughout the year 2020 in order to control the
spread of the COVID-19 virus, one of the measures put in place was the mandatory wearing of face
masks when inside public spaces like shops on 24 th July 2020. Currently researchers are looking into
whether these implemented rules are effective in reducing the spread of the virus but also if the
public is following these rules too. However, investigations thus far are showing conflicting findings
on this topic, Dr Daisy Fancourt of UCL found that despite the majority surveyed thought they
complied to the lockdown rules better than others despite almost 50% in a following investigation
failed to follow the rules correctly. Results like this beg the question of who is following the rules and
, Research Methods Assignment 2 PSY1090
if the public deem the given rules to be best thing to do with regards to the pandemic, this newly
conducted study aims to answer the prior question.
Zajenkowski et al (2020) did do a study into this, with use of the Big Five personality theory,
results were gathered to suggest that people with a more agreeable architype are more likely to
comply with the given restrictions. This study used the polish versions of the ‘Big Five’ personality
test devised by Goldberg (1992), however the results from this study can not necessarily be applied
to a wider population more specifically the UK population. This study was conducted to fill in this
cultural gap to help make the conclusion more universal using the ‘Ten Item Personality Inventory’
(‘TIPI’) proposed by Gosling et al (2003) for assessing the participants’ agreeableness. Agreeableness
is measuring if someone is either; soft-hearted or ruthless, trusting or suspicious and helpful or
cooperative. Someone who measures highly in agreeableness would have scored highly in
softheartedness, trusting and helpfulness. Laursen et al (2002) conducted a study looking into a
relationship between obedience and agreeableness in children and if that carried on into adulthood,
the study concluded that there was indeed a relation between high agreeableness and high
obedience. This would suggest that the study conducted here will also reflect this.
The study that was conducted was correlational by design with use of questionnaires to
investigate a possible relationship between the personality trait agreeableness and complying to the
face mask wearing rules associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 85 participants were
involved aged between 18 and 30 having a mean age of 20 with a near even spilt of sexes, 43 males
and 42 females. These participants were volunteers that were recruited online via social media
adverts; the study was also completed online to conform to the pandemic restrictions as the study
was conducted during a nation lockdown. Each participant was kept anonymous throughout the
study by being given an anonymous ID (1-85), the only personal information that was recorded was
the age and the sex of each participant. Once signed up participants were shown an information
page informing them on the aims of study about to take place, this was then followed up with a
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