key: cord-0879300-f66lynvt authors: Yoshino, Shinya; Shimotsukasa, Tadahiro; Hashimoto, Yasuhiro; Oshio, Atsushi title: The association between personality traits and hoarding behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan date: 2021-04-18 journal: Pers Individ Dif DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.110927 sha: 0fe031d526a27f0ba338de6db830dffb1a9c4092 doc_id: 879300 cord_uid: f66lynvt The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality traits and hoarding behavior during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. An online survey was conducted among 530 Japanese adults (274 women; M(age) = 44.26, SD(age) = 8.43) who were living in Tokyo when a state of emergency was declared. Personality traits were assessed using measures of the Big Five personality traits and greed. They also responded to measures of tendencies to hoard essential and countermeasure products during the COVID-19 pandemic. Correlation analysis revealed that Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness, and dispositional greed were positively associated with hoarding behavior. Multiple regression analysis revealed that individuals with high Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and dispositional greed tended to hoard products. The present findings suggest that personality traits account for behavioral responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. The emergent relationship between hoarding behavior and each personality trait is discussed in relation to the existing literature. specifications: statistical power = 80%, 5% significance level, and 530 participants. The analysis yielded an r-value of .12. We measured hoarding behavior using eight items, which pertained to products that were in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., face mask, toilet paper, tissue paper, rubbing alcohol, hand soap, wet tissue, rice, and instant food). The following question was presented: "When compared to last year, how many units of this product did you purchase between February and April 2020?" Items were rated on a 7-point scale that ranged from 1 (did not purchase) to 7 (purchased a lot). Exploratory factor analysis with maximum likelihood procedure extracted a one-factor solution consisting of all the 8 items. Factor loadings, intercorrelations, and descriptive statistics for the 8 items are shown in Table 1 . The correlation coefficients ranged from .24 to .68, and all factor loadings were greater than .47. The eight items yielded an acceptable J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach's alpha = .85). Therefore, the mean score was used as a measure of hoarding behavior. between February and April 2019, how easy was it to buy the following products between February and April 2020?" The participants rated each of eight items (face mask, toilet paper, tissue paper, rubbing alcohol, hand soap, wet tissue, rice, and instant food) on a 7-point scale that ranged from 1 (very difficult to buy) to 7 (very easy to buy). We used the mean of the 8 individual item scores (Cronbach's alpha = .88). First, we conducted correlation analysis to examine the relationship between personality traits and hoarding behavior. Second, we conducted multiple regression analysis to identify the personality predictors of hoarding behavior after controlling for the aforementioned covariates. Personality traits (i.e., the BFS-S and J-DGS), perceived infectability, germ aversion, age, sex, living arrangement, and ease of access served as the independent variables in the analysis. We used R (R Core Team, 2019) to conduct all statistical analyses. This study was conducted after ethical approval was obtained from the research ethics J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof review board of Teikyo Junior College (application number 17). The survey items did not require participants to provide personally identifiable information. The participants were informed about the survey purpose and method and assured that personally identifiable information will not be collected. They took part in this survey after consenting them. Table 2 presents means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients for the relationships between personality traits, hoarding behavior, and the other study variables. Hoarding behavior was positively related to Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness, and dispositional greed. Hoarding behavior was also negatively associated with (single-person household) living arrangement and positively associated with ease of access to essential and countermeasure products. Correlations between tendencies to hoard each product and personality traits are presented in Table S1 on supplementary material. transmission. Therefore, the validity of the present findings should be tested using samples of individuals from different social backgrounds and countries. Third, future studies should examine whether the present findings can be replicated during other public emergencies. Indeed, because many natural disasters (e.g., earthquake, typhoon) have struck Japan, hoarding behavior may emerge as a social problem. We examined the relationship between personality traits and hoarding behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Although this study didn't reveal the causal direction between them, the results suggested the likelihood that personality traits predict specific behavior even in case of emergency such as COVID-19. Additionally, hoarding behavior is an important social problem because many people can't take essential and countermeasure products, as a result, increase the risk of infection. It needs to indicate the cause of hoarding behavior from some perspectives, including individual differences, to prevent the secondary damage of COVID-19. Psychological and behavioural responses to coronavirus disease 2019: The role of personality COVID-19: Are extroversion and conscientiousness personality traits associated with engagement with containment measures? Pwr: Basic functions for power analysis Who hoards? Honesty-humility and behavioural responses to the 2019/20 coronavirus pandemic Perceived vulnerability to disease: Development and validation of a 15-item self-report instrument Development of a Japanese version of the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Scale Influence of perceived threat of Covid-19 and An empirical study about the intention to hoard food during COVID-19 pandemic Behavioral immune system linked to responses to the threat of COVID-19 Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation The development of the Japanese version of the Dispositional Greed Scale Universal J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof features of personality traits from the observer's perspective: Data from 50 cultures Does personality affect compulsive buying? An application of the big five personality model The life and times of individuals scoring high and low on dispositional greed Why do Japanese people use masks against COVID-19, even though masks are unlikely to offer protection from infection? and validity Adaptive and maladaptive behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: The roles of Dark Triad traits, collective narcissism, and health beliefs Consumer's psychological processes of hoarding and avoidant purchasing after the Tohoku earthquake Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes Influence of personality, morality and ideology R: A language and environment for statistical computing The power of personality: The comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes What is conscientiousness and how can it be assessed? We didn't obtain informed consent about sharing dataset in public. You can contact us if you have any questions about the dataset and the survey. Analysis script on R is shared in Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/9j58t/ Personality