Our recent research regarding the complex psychology of compliance with public health orders to control COVID-19 identified a psychological profile of people who flouted the rules in Australia, US, Canada and UK. As soon as the paper was published (PLOS ONE 16(7): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255268), it captured the attention of media in Australia and internationally (e.g., Guardian, Cosmos Magazine, PsyPost, newsGP, and ABC) with more than 100 mainstream media stories covering the research results, being a top Google story in the UK, and reaching 35.7K upvotes on the reddit science post covering this study (https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ov460e/those_who_flout_covid_recommendations_are_less/ ). It struck a nerve and, at times, provoked anger amid dangerous protests during the current lockdown. Importantly, by promoting greater appreciation of the complexity of behaviour during COVID-19, this research provided a vital platform to inform future studies in vaccine preference/hesitancy/refusal and targeted behaviour change interventions during pandemics.