Personality Traits, Emotional Intelligence, Socio-contextual Factors and Spousal Violence: The Trajectory of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

Abstract

<strong>Introduction:</strong> Media has revealed several Spousal Violence (SV) during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Nigeria whereas researchers have not delved into reasons for this surge. This study investigated the psychosocial factors influencing SV during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.<br /> <strong>Method:</strong> A web-based cross-sectional study utilizing snowballing sampling technique was adopted and participants were recruited in Lagos, Nigeria via social media platform, Facebook and WhatsApp using google form from March 30 to April 4, 2020. For this purpose, 356 participants consisting of 141-male and 215-female responded to the Big Five Personality Inventory, Trait Emotional Intelligence and Composite Abuse Scales.<br /> <strong>Results:</strong> Personality Traits (PT) and Emotional Intelligence (EI) jointly predicted SV [R=.267; R2=.077; F (6, 556), t=3.281, p < .01]. This is while, only patterns of neuroticism had independent significant prediction on SV with a positive impact [t=3.64, p < .01, β=.23]. Additionally, PT as a whole [t=2.54, p < .05, β=.22] and EI [t=2.31 p < .05, β=-.150] showed an independent prediction of SV (significantly) among the sampled participants with a negative impact. Also, the effect of living conditions [F=2.91, P<.05] and job status [F=4.912, P<.01] differ on SV among the selected participants.<br /> <strong>Conclusion:</strong> The study concluded that the surge in the SV outcomes during the COVID-19 crisis among Nigerians was caused by both psychological and socio-contextual factors. Therefore, better attention should be paid to psychological interventions and palliative measures during this pandemic or future lock-down.