Eduard Vieta
Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Barcelona, Head of the Psychiatry and Psychology Department at Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, and researcher at the Biomedical Research Centre in Mental Health (CIBERSAM)
This is a study that looks at changes in personality structure in a relatively large sample of the general US population before and after the pandemic. The study has some validity, but also limitations, especially in making attributions to the pandemic, as the changes may be due to other factors. Moreover, the results cannot be generalised to other countries with very different policies regarding the measures taken to combat the pandemic, which have been very different from country to country or even state to state within the US.
The results show rather small changes whose practical significance is difficult to guess. It is true that the pandemic, and especially the measures taken by each country to combat it, have had effects on mental health. But personality is a relatively stable quality of individuals, and the changes detected in the study seem to be to be expected in a context of major stress such as that experienced in certain periods in 2020 and 2021, and would fit with the detected increase in mental health problems (eating behaviour, self-harm, etc.) observed in the younger population.