By Joshua Slocum, The Federalist, August 19, 2025
Joshua Slocum is a writer and commentator focused on the rise in abusive and narcissistic behavior in American society. His weekly podcast “Disaffected”, and the show’s Substack, analyze cultural trends through the lens of negative personality traits that mirror the psychology of domestic and child abuse.
The Financial Times analyzed data on personality characteristics and the results are grim, especially among the young.
A new analysis of personality surveys is putting the weight of data behind some things we all know — the alleged “pandemic” broke the minds of millions.
The Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch analyzed data from a set of longitudinal surveys of personality characteristics and found an unprecedented decline in positive, pro-social traits such as extroversion and conscientiousness, along with a huge spike in neurotic thoughts and behavior. Those changes were quite obviously tied to the social, cultural, and governmental upheaval wrought by the hysterical response to the Covid-19 virus.
The Financial Times analyzed data from a years-long set of surveys measuring the personality characteristics of respondents. Personality is measured on something called the Five-Factor Model: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The findings are grim. Burn-Murdoch noticed that conscientiousness — doing your duty and following through on promises — was starting to decline noticeably in 2021 and 2022. In addition, traits such as neuroticism (negative feelings such as rumination, anxiety, and despair) started to increase, while agreeableness was trending down. …
