Social distancing is the right thing to do: Dark Triad behavioral correlates in the COVID-19 quarantine

The COVID-19 outbreak has recently reached the status of a global pandemic. People should abide by governmental rules to avoid spreading contagion. These rules could be associated with the concept of “social distancing”, namely avoiding contact with others. In such an unprecedented situation, social gathering and display of affection should be considered potentially harmful, while isolation is deemed altruistic. The distinction between prosocial and antisocial behavior is suddenly ambiguous, and research is needed to understand citizens' behavior during the pandemic, in order to adapt public health communication to multiple kinds of recipients. 465 participants filled in an online questionnaire on their experience and behavior during the first weeks of the quarantine, and on antisocial personality (Dark Triad Dirty Dozen). Results showed that machiavellianism and psychopathy are negatively correlated with adoption of healthy behaviors and positively associated with the tendency to continue living one's own life “as nothing happened”. Also, sex differences relates to healthy or anti-social behaviors, significantly mediated by machiavellianism. It is possible that non-conforming to recommendations is not influenced by aggression, but by individuals persevering in their activities independently of the quarantine, consistently with machiavellianism. Discussion deals with suggestions for effective communication of good practices in the pandemic.