Police employees working from home during COVID-19 lockdown: Those with higher score on extraversion miss their colleagues more and are more likely to socialize with colleagues outside work

Abstract

There is a general opinion that extraverted people suffer more than introverted people in home-office arrangement and the social distancing regulation imposed by the government during the Corona Virus Disease 2019 pandemic (COVID-19). However, scarce research exists concerning how extraversion is associated with satisfaction with home-office arrangement, to what extent individuals miss their colleagues, level of stress, and whether they meet colleagues outside work during lockdown.

An online survey was distributed in six police districts in Norway during late May and beginning of June, right before the most stringent measures for constraining risk of COVID-infection was lifted. 1133 out of 1472 reported that their work-situation was home-office, or combined home-office and physical attendance at work. Contrary to what expected, extraversion was not related to satisfaction with home-office arrangement when controlling for other relevant variables (i.e. stress, home-office only, living alone, age, gender and civilian employment). As hypothesized, those with a higher score on extraversion missed their colleagues more than those with low scores. There was a marginal, although significant, negative association between extraversion and stress, and a significant positive relationship between stress and the extent the respondents missed their colleagues during lockdown, independent of extraversion. The results showed a dose-response relationship between extraversion and meeting colleagues outside the work during lockdown.