No abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced individuals to adjust to a new order in which their liberties are restricted and uncertainty rules. The current work examined the role of other-focusedemotion regulation (ER) training in enhancing coping efficacy and reducing COVID-19 worries. For that, during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Israel, we trained 59 young individuals to perform other-focused emotion regulation, by reappraising others’ written upsetting events. We compared this procedure to a self-reappraisal training, in which 49 participants were asked to reappraise own upsetting events. Both procedures were performed every other day for three weeks. Participants’ coping efficacy was assessed at the daily level, while worries concerning theCOVID-19 effects on health, economic status, and social life were assessed following the training and at a two-month follow-up. The results demonstrated that other-focused ER surpassed self-focused ER. Specifically, participants in the other-reappraisal group exhibited an increase in coping efficacy across the training sessions and a reduction in COVID-19 worries that persisted two months after the training. These findings highlight the role of interpersonal emotion regulation at times of crisis and social isolation.

In two studies, we examined the utility of intrinsic (i.e., self) versus extrinsic (i.e., other) reappraisal training for distress reduction during two consecutive COVID-19 lockdowns in Israel. In both Study 1 (n = 104) and Study 2 (n = 181), participants practiced the use of reappraisal for eight sessions across three weeks. Participants were trained to reappraise either a personal event (self-reappraisal group) or an incident presumably written by another participant (other-reappraisal group). Study 2 also included an untrained control group. Outcome measures were daily negative mood and psychological distress immediately at post-training and at a two-month follow-up. The results demonstrate a benefit for training compared to no training in lowering immediate post-training distress and daily negative emotions. However, this advantage disappeared at the two-month follow-up. In both studies, intrinsic reappraisal was associated with lower post-training distress than extrinsic reappraisal. Findings suggest reappraising negative experiences may lower distress at times of major contextual stress. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03642-6.