The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to wellbeing for people around the world. Here, we examine which individual and societal factors can predict the extent to which individuals suffer or thrive during the COVID-19 outbreak, with survey data collected from 26,684 participants in 51 countries from 17 April to 15 May 2020. We show that wellbeing is linked to an individual's recent experiences of specific momentary positive and negative emotions, including love, calm, determination, and loneliness. Higher socioeconomic status was associated with better wellbeing. The present study provides a rich map of emotional experiences and wellbeing around the world during the COVID-19 outbreak, and points to calm, connection, and control as central to our wellbeing at this time of collective crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to wellbeing for people around the world. Here, we examine which individual and societal factors can predict the extent to which individuals suffer or thrive during the COVID-19 outbreak, with survey data collected from 26,684 participants in 51 countries from 17 April to 15 May 2020. We show that wellbeing is linked to an individual’s recent experiences of specific momentary positive and negative emotions, including love, calm, determination, and loneliness. Higher socioeconomic status was associated with better wellbeing. The present study provides a rich map of emotional experiences and wellbeing around the world during the COVID-19 outbreak, and points to calm, connection, and control as central to our wellbeing at this time of collective crisis.

While much is known about how negative emotions are expressed in different modalities, our understanding of the nonverbal expressions of positive emotions remains limited. In the present research, we draw upon disparate lines of theoretical and empirical work on positive emotions, and systematically examine which channels are thought to be used for expressing four positive emotions: feeling moved, gratitude, interest, and triumph. Employing the intersubjective approach, an established method in cross-cultural psychology, we first explored how the four positive emotions were reported to be expressed in two North American community samples (Studies 1a and 1b: n = 1466). We next confirmed the cross-cultural generalizability of our findings by surveying respondents from ten countries that diverged on cultural values (Study 2: n = 1826). Feeling moved was thought to be signaled with facial expressions, gratitude with the use of words, interest with words, face and voice, and triumph with body posture, vocal cues, facial expressions, and words. These findings provide cross-culturally consistent findings of differential expressions across positive emotions. Notably, positive emotions were thought to be expressed via modalities that go beyond the face.

While much is known about how negative emotions are expressed in different modalities, our understanding of the nonverbal expressions of positive emotions remains limited. In the present research, we draw upon disparate lines of theoretical and empirical work on positive emotions, and systematically examine which channels are thought to be used for expressing four positive emotions: feeling moved, gratitude, interest, and triumph. Employing the intersubjective approach, an established tool in cross-cultural psychology, we first examined how the four positive emotions were reported to be expressed in a U.S.A. community sample (Study 1: n = 1015). We next confirmed the cross-cultural generalizability of our findings by surveying respondents from ten countries that diverged on cultural values (Study 2: n = 1834). Feeling moved was thought to be signaled with facial expressions, gratitude with the use of words, interest with words, face and voice, and triumph with body posture, vocal cues, facial expressions, and words. These findings provide cross-culturally consistent findings of differential expressions across positive emotions. Notably, positive emotions were mostly thought to be expressed via modalities that go beyond the face. In addition, we hope that the intersubjective approach will constitute a useful tool for researchers studying nonverbal expressions.

In the past 20 years, greater attention has been devoted to the study of self‐regulation in an interpersonal context. This review summarize this work and presents findings on how self‐regulation processes influence close relationship outcomes. The review is organized around the four ingredients of self‐regulation (i.e., standards, monitoring, self‐regulatory capacity, and motivation). For each ingredient, we discuss their influence on relationship processes and dynamics. In the standards section, we discuss the literature on approach/avoidance, promotion/prevention, goal conflicts between partners, and interpersonal goal support. In the monitoring section, we describe how partners' monitoring of each other's goal progress affects relationships. We also highlight that research on this topic is scant. In the self‐regulatory capacity section, we discuss findings on how self‐regulatory capacity is associated with relationship maintenance behaviors. In the motivation section, we review the literature on commitment and its impact on relationship dynamics. Finally, for each ingredient, we address an important avenue for future research.