Exploring the Protective Function of Positivity and Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy in Time of Pandemic COVID-19

Abstract

Despite several empirical studies on the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that have highlighted its detrimental effect on individuals’ mental health, the identification of psychological factors that may moderate its impact on individuals’ behavior and well-being remains partly unexplored. The present study was conceived to examine the mediation role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy in the relationship between positivity and anxiety, depression, and perceived self-efficacy in complying with the containment measures to contrast the COVID-19 spread. Furthermore, the moderation role of age was tested. A sample of 1258 participants (64.2% women; Mage = 42.09, SD = 13.62) enrolled from the Italian general population answered an online survey aimed at investigating the role of individual differences in facing the COVID-19 pandemic. We opted for a snowball recruiting procedure to find participants. The online survey was disseminated through email invitation and using social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram). A multi-group path analysis model was performed using Mplus 8.4 to explore the hypothesized relations among variables. The following criteria were employed to evaluate the goodness of fit: χ2 likelihood ratio statistic, CFI and TLI > 0.95, RMSEA < 0.06 and SRMR < 0.08. The findings corroborated the protective role of both positivity and regulatory emotional self-efficacy in reducing individuals’ anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as in fostering individuals’ capabilities in complying with the containment measures imposed by the government to reduce the risk of illness and to contain the spread of the virus COVID-19. Specifically, regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs partially mediated the relations between positivity and anxiety and depressive symptoms and fully mediated the effect of positivity on perceived self-efficacy beliefs in complying with the containment measures. These paths were equal across ages. The results of the present study appear relevant to implementing psychological interventions aimed to reduce the deleterious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health through the promotion of individuals’ optimistic orientation and emotion regulation.

Assisted Conception Socialization Self-Efficacy Among Israeli Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Parent Families and its Association with Child Externalizing Problems

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The Impact of Positivity and Parochial Altruism on Protective Behaviours during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy

“…Responses were summed to produce a total score, ranging from 8 to 40, with higher scores indicating greater positivity orientation. The P Scale had good internal validity and reliability across different languages, cultural contexts, and developmental phases [ 14 ], and it was used in other studies during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 25 , 37 ]. The Cronbach’s alpha of the questionnaire in this study was 0.82.…”

Higher Levels of Postnatal Depressive Symptomatology, Post-Traumatic Growth, and Life Satisfaction among Gay Fathers through Surrogacy in Comparison to Heterosexual Fathers: A Study in Israel in Times of COVID-19

“…Social context can affect the psychological welfare of parents, and it should thus be noted that our recruitment took place during the second and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related restrictions, including lockdowns, in Israel. The accumulated stress deriving from health and financial insecurities and from spending more time than usual with children due to social distancing and lockdowns makes any exploration of both postnatal depressive symptomatology and posttraumatic growth among parents with young children extremely relevant [49].…”