Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe anxiety and affected mental and psychological health of the people. Virus related anxiety is thought to be affected by several socio-demographic factors, individual’s risk-perception, and personality. Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate the predictors of corona virus-related general anxiety and death anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak in India. More specifically, the study examined the COVID-19 related reassurance-seeking behaviours, neuroticism, health anxiety, and risk perception among the adult population. Design: A survey methodology was adopted to collect data from the general adult population (N=550) in India between October 29th to November 10th, 2020.  Data analysis was carried out using multiple regression analysis in SPSS to examine the significant predictors of general anxiety and death anxiety of the participants. The analysis used the incremental validity of Corona reassurance-seeking behaviours in the multiple regression model. Setting: The study was conducted among the Indian general population. Findings: Major significant predictors of general anxiety related pandemic included demographic factors like being female, being young, and less educated. Simultaneously, we observed common predictors of virus-related general anxiety and death anxiety, Corona reassurance-seeking behaviours, health anxiety, and neuroticism. The participant's risk perception predicted the participant's death anxiety but not the general anxiety during the pandemic. Discussion: The present study's findings will help the policymakers handle pandemic related stress in a better manner.

The objective of this article is to examine the impact of macro-extreme emotional experience (MEEE) and the new societal norms during the COVID-19 pandemic on health and well-being and their situational consequences on emotional labour of frontline employees. The vast literature on emotional labour in the past has focused on several situational cues, and individual and organizational factors as antecedents. We did a systematic review of available literature on emotional labour, literature on sentiment analysis and emotional experience during the pandemic and analysed COVID-19 related blogs using Natural Language Processing (NLP) in RStudio. At the same time, we attempted to look at the possible intervention of individual factors of MEEEs and social aspects of the new societal norms as antecedents on emotion regulation process and its outcome and propose a conceptual framework for future research on emotional labour under the ‘new normal’. It was concluded that perceived risk, fear and anxiety are extreme emotions that individuals are experiencing during the pandemic.

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