Compared with the large body of literature on coping, coping flexibility has received relatively scant research attention, although more such studies have begun to emerge recently. Researchers have conceptualized coping flexibility in diverse ways: as a broad coping repertoire, a well-balanced coping profile, cross-situational variability in strategy deployment, a good strategy-situation fit, or the perceived ability to cope with environmental changes. This meta-analysis is the first to provide a summary estimate of the overall effect size and investigate cross-study sources of variation in the beneficial role of coping flexibility. The analysis covers all available studies conducted between 1978 and 2013 that empirically tested the relationship between coping flexibility and psychological adjustment. The results of a random-effects model revealed a small to moderate overall mean effect size (r = .23, 95% CI [.19, .28], 80% CRI [-.02, .49], k = 329, N = 58,946). More important, the magnitude of the positive link between coping flexibility and psychological adjustment varied with the conceptualization of such flexibility. Studies adopting the perceived ability or strategy-situation fit conceptualization yielded moderate effect sizes, whereas those adopting the broad repertoire, balanced profile, or cross-situational variability conceptualization yielded small effect sizes. In addition, the positive link between coping flexibility and psychological adjustment was stronger in samples from countries lower (vs. higher) in individualism and samples with higher (vs. lower) average ages. Individualism and age explained 10% and 13% of the variance, respectively. We discuss the conceptual problems and implications and propose a synthesized conceptualization of coping flexibility.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. Although increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes, as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. To gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (22 March to 19 April) in a convenience sample of N = 15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p < 0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p < 0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. While increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. In order to gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (March 22nd to April 19th) in a convenience sample of N=15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p&lt;0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p&lt;0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the world has likened COVID-19 to SARS which devastated Hong Kong in 2003. Based on the results of a survey conducted between March and April 2020 with 761 Hong Kong adult residents, we summarised three lessons on the coping of Hong Kong people: (i) Establish adequate personal vigilance, (ii) Brace for a mental health crisis and (iii) Find strengths in social and community support. Social workers' roles in health education, identifying service gaps, resource mapping and orchestrating community actions are vital for empowering flexible and adaptive community responses.