Coping With COVID-19: The Benefits of Anticipating Future Positive Events and Maintaining Optimism

Abstract

In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a large portion of the world into quarantine, leading to an extensive period of stress making it necessary to explore regulatory techniques that are effective at stimulating long-lasting positive emotion. Previous research has demonstrated that anticipating positive events produces increases in positive emotion during discrete stressors. We hypothesized that state and trait positive anticipation during the COVID-19 pandemic would be associated with increased positive emotions. We assessed how often participants thought about a future positive/negative/neutral event, activity, or goal through a daily reconstruction method that represented a “day in the life” of people in the United States during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of multi-level modeling and mediational analyses demonstrated that higher optimism, one form of trait positive anticipation, was related to higher state positive anticipation, which was in turn related to higher positive emotions during the current episode, which persisted to the next episode. In addition, both optimism and state positive anticipation were related to adaptive responses to the pandemic. These findings suggest that anticipation of future emotional experiences and hopefulness for the future can be a powerful predictor of positive emotions during global pandemics and perhaps other similar chronic stressors.

The Future Looks Good: Examining the Associations Between Coping, Psychological Distress, and Optimism

“…Current findings suggests that maladaptive coping displayed a negative association whith optimism, whereas adaptive coping displayed a positive association whith optimism. This result aligns with our hypothesis and previous research ( Leslie-Miller et al, 2021 ; Smida et al, 2021 ). Individuals who were motivated to deal with COVID-19 displayed higher so cews in optimism and positive anticipation ( Leslie-Miller et al, 2021 ).…”

Psychological Impact in Healthcare Workers During Emergencies: The Italian Experience With COVID-19 First Wave

“…Italian health workers, for instance, reported a high level of burnout, psychological symptoms, and emotional exhaustion during COVID-19 pandemic ( 53 ). Positive feelings, on the other hand, including conscientiousness and self-sacrifice for patients were also reported by HCWs while they were putting their health and live at risk for patients ( 43 , 44 ). This finding is particularly interesting as positive emotional states have rarely been investigated in HCWs working in similar circumstances.…”

“…A further aim is to analyze the possible experience of positive emotions, in spite of the dramatic situation, to highlight possible protective factors. In fact, positive emotions have been associated with increased well being and improved psychological resources needed for adaptive coping ( 43 , 44 ).…”

COVID‐19‐related anxiety: How do coping and optimism relate to substance use in African–American young adults?

“…More optimistic thinking coincides with the lowered occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and PTSD symptoms (Rauch et al, 2013 ). Individuals with higher optimism and positive anticipation are less prone to stress and are more motivated to deal with COVID‐19 (Leslie‐Miller et al, 2021 ). Students who reported low levels of optimism report higher coronavirus anxiety (Ajlouni & Almahaireh, 2020 ).…”