Smell Ya Later: How Personality and Odor Perception Impact Risky Behavior in the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic adherence with recommended safety protocols varied widely. Previous research suggests that compliance with safety protocols might be influenced by personality factors such as narcissism, Big 5 dimensions, and political ideology. Given that safety protocols like masking and social distancing could also impact social olfactory communication by interfering with the ability to perceive body odor-based cues from others, we hypothesized that sensory processing of olfactory cues might also impact compliance with these safety measures. In this pilot study we examined this question by collecting self-report measures of narcissism, Big 5 personality factors, body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS), odor awareness (OAS), sensory impact of safety protocols, and risky behaviors. Our results suggest that narcissism, political affiliation, and extraversion all influenced compliance with safety measures, and that OAS and BODS scores were related to infection status and sensory impact. We suggest that future work consider the impact of sensory processing along with personality in determining the likelihood of compliance with pandemic-related safety measures.