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Objectives The outbreak of contagious diseases and their associated non-pharmaceutical interventions can lead to negative mental health consequences. This study aimed to investigate online self-compassion exercises’ effectiveness in alleviating people’s negative affect (anxiety and negative emotions) during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Methods Study 1 examined the associations between self-compassion and negative affect using an anonymous online survey. In study 2, two pilot experiments were conducted to examine online self-compassion exercises’ (i.e., instructor-guided meditation and self-guided writing) effectiveness to mitigate individuals’ negative affect. In study 3, a randomized controlled study was conducted to further examine online self-compassion writing’s effectiveness in reducing people’s negative affect. Results The results of study 1 indicated a significant negative association between self-compassion and participants’ negative affect. Participants in study 2a reported significant decreases in negative affect after completing the self-compassion meditation. Study 2b showed that participants who completed the self-compassion writing reported significantly more self-compassion and less anxiety when compared to participants who did not. Study 3 showed substantial pre/post-test changes in participants who completed self-compassion writing. Importantly, there were significant increases in participants’ self-compassion and decreases in negative affect when compared to participants in the control condition. Conclusions Self-compassion exercises were effective to alleviate individuals’ anxiety and reduce negative emotions (even within a brief session) during the pandemic lockdown. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12671-021-01674-w.

Awe differs from common positive emotions, triggered by vast stimuli, and characterized by a need for accommodation (NFA). Although studies have revealed the downstream effects of awe experience, little is known about the neural basis of dispositional awe. In the current study, we determined the neural correlation of dispositional awe by using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) in 42 young healthy adults, as measured by the Dispositional Positive Emotion Scale (DPES). Results revealed that the dispositional awe score was negatively associated with the regional gray matter volume (rGMV) in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), middle/posterior cingulate cortex (MCC/PCC) and middle temporal gyrus (MTG). These results suggest that individual differences in dispositional awe involve multiple brain regions related to attention, conscious self-regulation, cognitive control and social emotion. This study is the first to provide evidence for the structural neural basis of individual differences in dispositional awe.

As child maltreatment is a common social problem worldwide, the present study explores the relationship between child maltreatment and dispositional envy and the mediating effects of self-esteem and social support in this relationship. Data were collected from 426 Chinese college students (M age = 20.63, SD = 1.85), using the Child Abuse Scale, Dispositional Envy Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. The results show that self-esteem plays a partially mediating role in the association between child maltreatment and envy. In addition, sequential mediation analyses have further revealed the maltreatment effect of envy, through social support and self-esteem. Further, a multiple-group analysis has shown that men with high child maltreatment scores tend to have lower levels of social support than women. These results provide an important reference for revealing how maltreatment early in life effects social emotion in adulthood, particularly dispositional envy. They may provide a valuable resource for psychological interventions targeting people of both genders who are victims of child maltreatment.

Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend current frames of reference. Narrative and experimental work has characterized two distinct variants of awe: positive and negative; however, little is known about the structural neural basis associated with the differences of these two variants of awe. In this study, we investigated the structural neural basis of positive and negative awe underlying individual differences among 62 young healthy adults. Specifically, we assessed the association between regional gray matter volume (rGMV) and the two different variants of awe using the voxel-based morphometry (VBM). A partial correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between rGMV and behavioral positive and negative awe, while controlling for sex, age and total GMV. VBM indicated that positive awe was positively correlated with GMV in the precuneus, and negatively correlated with GMV in the left fusiform and the right calcarine. Negative awe was negatively correlated with GMV in the left and right insula, and the left superior temporal gyrus. These results provide a neural explanation for the differences of these two variants of awe.