17 key personality types when it comes to handling coronavirus


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With the stress of restrictions and self-quarantines, some Americans are lashing out at one another. They are criticizing each other’s attitudes, decisions and approaches.

When it comes to handling a crisis— or any pressure— I think a lot of an individual’s response has to do with personality type.

An alarmist personality will not be able to convince a fatalist to see things their way, and vice versa. The process of trying can create conflict and frustration.

Here are 17 key personality types when it comes to handling coronavirus. Which type(s) are you? What about your family and friends.

1. The Enforcer: This personality polices everyone else. 

“You touched your face!” “Why aren’t you home in isolation?” “You let your kids eat like that?”

2. Drama Queen: This person creates drama around the simplest event.

“OMG! I went to the store and they were COMPLETELY OUT OF MY favorite potato chips! I can’t fall asleep at night if I don’t eat those special chips. I’m going to be a mess tomorrow morning! I won’t get any sleep. I’m definitely going to get sick.”

3. Action Oriented a/k/a The Organizer: This type is always on the move, trying to impact his environment.

“I can show you how to make your own hand sanitizer.” “We can build plastic shields and have a social distance meeting to discuss how we are going to divide duties the next month.”

4. Party Animal: Anything is an excuse for a party. This person avoids addressing serious events by ignoring them.

“Let’s put on some music and have a social distance party six feet apart! I’ll make  corona cocktails!”

5. The Selfie: This person is a character in his own movie at all times.

“Take a picture of me looking for toilet paper on this empty shelf.” “Here I am taking my temperature— no fever!” 

6. The Optimist: They are most comfortable when immersed in the best case scenario.

“The worst is over… we will come back stronger than ever…” “Well, some good will come of this. At least it has brought families together. We’re getting a break from work stresses and reconnecting with our real lives.”

7. The Alarmist a/k/a The Pessimist: They are most comfortable considering the worst case scenario.

“I know I’m going to catch it. You’re going to catch it, too. They’re not telling us how bad it is. We’re all going to die.”

8. The Fatalist: There is no point in even trying.

“This is the End of Days. I knew it was coming. It’s all part of The Plan.”

9. The Ideologue: Everything that happens is filtered through a partisan lens.

“Coronavirus is Trump’s fault.” “Coronavirus is the Democrats’ fault.”

10. The Inquisitor: This person is constantly questioning and seeking information.

“Who—what—when—where—why—how..” and “…Really?”

11. The Researcher a/k/a The Analyst: These types gather factual and historic information and apply it to the events at hand.

“The 1918 epidemic showed us..” “This chart proves…”

12. The Skeptic: This type accepts nothing at face value.

“But how do we really know…”

13. The Realist: Less doomsday than the fatalist, The Realist accepts with a matter of fact attitude.

“It is what it is. If I get it; I get it. We all die of something.”

14. The Futurist: This personality sees transformation resulting from chaos.

“Our lives will be transformed with new technologies and methods even after this is over, more telecommuting, telemedicine, distance learning…”

15. The Sociologist: A person who looks at how events impact the way we live life.

“Our society will be transformed with social distancing a new, permanent reality, different crowd experiences, new ways to connect without touch…”

16. The Psychologist: This person psycho-analyzes the impact.

“People will lose their motivation and become depressed.”

17. The Opportunist a/k/a The Entrepreneur: This type finds opportunity in most any environment. 

“I can start a new business that caters to the people stuck at home.” “I’m waiting for the right moment and am going to buy stock in…”

As long as they aren’t endangering others, people should probably be allowed to process stress in his own way.

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42 thoughts on “17 key personality types when it comes to handling coronavirus”

  1. Alicia Maravilhao

    I’m a 6/11 (optimist/researcher) but I’m getting bored with the tedium. So, at great length, I’ll figure this out…

    There are enough partisan nitwits jabbering, writing and tweeting that I’ve looked seriously at becoming an ideologue, not for the pandemic being someone’s fault other than CCP, but due to the venal, dishonest cynics in TV news, the White House press corps and their mommy, Rep. Nan-Nan P.

    But becoming an ideologue would require a bunch of negative emotional energy, and despite what I wrote above, I am so far maintaining cold contempt instead of active irritation or anger, and I Put Down the Electronic Thing and Walk Away if I feel a surge of emotion. Or I work a sudoku puzzle and then Walk Away.

    4 . This will work best. More housework, that’s the ticket. Sort through the books. Read escapist fiction or informative nonfiction that is nowhere near politics or disease. Cook something, exercise. So, if not a Party Animal, ignoring the problem most of the day is best, Four-ish, but not truly four..

    Thanks for asking :-)

  2. 30Million to 400Million American die each year from medical mistakes.

    https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us
    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
    https://healthydebate.ca/2019/08/topic/medical-error-causing-death

    And we don’t shut down the economy over it.

    This corona virus is real, but the fear is manufactured.

    It’s geared perfectly for the snowflake generation who expect to live forever and have everyone else pay for it.

    We still can’t take a bottle of water on the plane because of 9/11. What other draconian measure will society have to put up with over this hysteria?

  3. Lol? Yeah, but who’s the worst one to be stuck in the HOUSE with?
    ? No wonder my family is avoiding me!
    This is great -Love, from New York

  4. The Plan? I love it. WWG1WGA :-)

    I have to say I’m #4 at least for another week. The dry vermouth is already gone as is the gin but we still have tequila and some wine. No way I’m mixing them, though. Maybe I can make it for two weeks.. I got some 14 in me too. I really think things are going to be better.

  5. Love the article! But can’t take the poll because I am a combination of at least three of the types, as I bet most people are.

    1. GracieZG :

      Far more importantly, than how many types
      you are, is this fact about each and every one
      of us :

      All conflict reflects projection of
      an internal, oppositional dynamic
      found in our brain hemisphericity: 

           Left Hemisphere ( logical and 
           masculine ) vs. Right Hemisphere
           ( emotional and feminine ).

      Each brain is two distinct – and
      mentally conflicted – people:

           Female and Male !

      -Rick

  6. I lived in the FSU in the mid to late 1990s. There were times when you went to stores and markets and bought was was available. You simply accepted at times you would not see certain items. We managed to get by with an occasional trip to Moscow and care packages from friends. We also used every trip out of the country to bring back essentials that were difficult to obtain locally.

    You get used to scarcity over time. You alternate between denial and acceptance and learn to get by with what you have or you flee. Really, many people flow between different types as they deal with a crisis. If you get stuck in a mode that is self-defeating you are in trouble unless you have someone to help right you in time.

    It’s strange to see the crisis and panic happening here though and I do see a lot of panic buying of some really odd items. For example, you can’t find yeast in the market for the last week or so. Everyone seems to now be hoarding flour and yeast. So we have fallen back on alternate recipes that don’t require yeast.

    If I couldn’t get to the store for 45 days we’d be okay but the diet would be quite monotonous. I can live with that but others don’t do well in situations like that.

    BTW, I have made my own hand sanitizer and it works but it won’t be a regular practice here.

  7. About half way of 1 and 2. Was a paramedic for 20 years….Paramedics take charge in a crisis to bring order and sanity back to a situation. Jerry

  8. What about correlation between social distancing and ethnicity –
    the German-Swiss will be the best
    social distancers.

  9. Going by the choices, I am a researcher, a skeptic, and a realist. But I actually consider myself a historian. So I know better than to buy into anything the MSM reports. I realize I am preaching to the lead singer in the Choir when I say that MSM reporting in nothing more than reading government/corporate press releases. And those releases have a specific agendas. Those agendas along with this current agenda do not have the best interests of the American people at heart. Based upon history, the Corona virus agenda has been meticulously planned for for many years and is the big push to strip those pesky Americans of their last freedoms and bring us into the fold of a one world government. It has long been known (See Henry Kissinger) that when people fear they will give away their freedoms. West Nile, SARS, and Zika were merely test runs. Now they have it right with Corona.

    The truth is that there are many different strains of Corona viruses. Some causing flu like symptoms, some associated with the common cold, some give us the sniffles for a day or two. The tests to determine positives will not differentiate between them and COVIDQ 19. It s highly likely that over 50% of the population could test positive at any given time. In order to drive the fear home, they are now testing everyone who dies. Imagine the panic when people hear that half of all deaths are linked to the Corona virus.

    Previous false flags have shown that the last remaining bastion of the free interchange of ideas is the internet. Facebook,, Instagram, YouTube, etc have been locked down. Any comments questioning the current agenda are either flagged as fake news and are unsharable. Anyone getting traction has their account deleted. Sites such as this are being removed from Google searches with pro agenda websites.

    Do what is the agenda? Ultimately it is a One World government. A cashless society where every citizen is a medical patient of the state. Medical Science, regardless of truth, is the new religion. People will either worship at the altar or be dealt with.

    No guns, electronic IDs, chip implantation, death panels. Sound Orwellian? You bet your ass it does. Here it comes. Think about the first 4 amendments to the Constitution. What needs to be done next?

    1. Sharyl ( and Richard ) :

      Let’s say you do have 18 – not 17 – types listed above,
      re Dale’s “ A H H H H H ” counting method.

      That allows this intuitive mystic to present an all-
      important 19th type, as 19 is an illuminati number :

      Illuminati #19
      https://www.unboundedwisdom.com/if-the-illuminati-created-covid-19-here-are-3-main-reasons-why-it-created-it/

      Richard’s above concerns reflect EVIL machinations/
      EVIL works, applied by this type—named :

      “D E S T R O Y E R.”

      Shiva! / Satan! / Lilith!

      It would take pages to walk you through it,
      to persuade you of the EVIL occultism afoot
      throughout the West, which PRAYER may
      thwart.

      -Rick

  10. I expected to read something from 1’s, 7’s and 17’s — and not read a word from 4’s and 8’s.

    Yep, not a word from 4’s and 8’s.

    1. So, Susan, you are #8 ? :
      :
      F A T A L I S T.

      Find and read, “Journeys Out of the Body,”
      by Robert A. Monroe—to learn that everyone
      gets out A L I V E.

      How?

      —because there is no death.

      You are not your physical body.

      What happens is : T R A N S I T I O N.

      Think of the stages of a butterfly.—
      over and over and over again.

      Study Hindu vedas for a better clue.

      Even so, I get your meaning.

      -Rick

      1. Geez, Rick….I am torn between 8 and 13 if you ask me.
        “The cycle of perpetual renewal, as in Nature, is the progression that consists of five parts: death, decay, fertilization, gestation, rebirth. Everything we experience has a beginning, a middle, an end and is followed by a new beginning. It’s the constant cycling of death and rebirth, the endless going and return. Therefore do not draw back from the passage into darkness. When in deep water, become a diver.”
        “The Book of Runes” a Commentary by Ralph Blum

  11. One that I run into is the ‘anecdotist’, “I heard that a young man (the brother of the cousin of a friend) caught the Covid and died even though he was only 20(ish) and didn’t have any complicating conditions.”

    1. Cogsys:

      Table sugar kills, because it effects acidity in the body.

      Avoid sugar. / take D3 / take a high-end multi-vitamin (( see
      lef.com )) with a meal / and exercise (( at least walking every day )).

      More, re ACID vs. ALKALINE
      —and what kills killer viruses :

      https://time.com/5808894/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus/

      “ . . . SARS-CoV-2 requires an A C I D I C environment.

      Hydroxychloroquine is an A L K A L I N E compound, so

      it raises the pH levels of the host environment, preventing

      the virus from releasing its genes for replicating.”

      -Rick

  12. I found this in my Spam file & I have no idea why.

    A lot of effort and creativity went into these classifications.
    I am on the lazy side of things and I would say there are the Democrats, Republicans, a group for those who do not realize anything is happening, and those that are sure what is happening.

    I will either place my categories into your classifications or yours into mine.
    Keep up the great work.

  13. What we are seeing here is the effect of ignorance on scattering opinion. Send everybody away to learn about:

    1) The Flexner Report and Rockerfeller Medicine
    2) UN Agenda 21
    3) The history and politics of virology and germ theory
    4) how Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates made their money
    5) The chiropractors v. the AMA, and the origins of the ‘skeptic’ movement
    6) The Federal Reserve and the need for a global financial reset
    7) The secret societies behind globalism
    8) The dangers of medicine and vaccines
    9) Why AIDS is a fraud

    Then see how many categories there are. I bet the number would be less than 17 after that.

  14. I have gone through most of these, at least for a short time; but mostly I am a 6/optimist. We are a people who don’t just give up. The threat is real, but nowhere near as serious to the total population as some Loud Voices would want us to believe. Let the scaredy cats continue to cower if they want to, but let the rest of us live, work and learn — safely, yes, but without over-reacting.

    I will wear a mask if it makes other people feel safer. Maybe I will rustle a pony and rob a stagecoach while I am wearing it. ;)

  15. Perhaps I fluctuate. We are older/at-risk/essential. Raising livestock for a living has taught us more than I really like to consider about COVID.

    Overall, we have adapted our food shopping and other necessary interactions to brst insulate/isolate ourselves from others. Unlike most people, knowing how biological systems and pathogens play out, I did not exoect this to be a quick turnaround.

    Psychological fatigue has set in with most Americans, I think. As a very social person, I am not happy about missing my outside-the-home activities, I do realize we are blessed to have each other and everything we need.

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