Individual Differences Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Age, Gender, Personality, and Positive Psychology

Bernabé-Valero, Gloria; Melero-Fuentes, David; Argimon, Irani Iracema de Lima; Gerbino, María

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644286

Cited by 30 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Other studies provide support to gender differences in the increase of negative emotions due to COVID-19 sudden health and lifestyle changes ( Ahuja et al, 2020 ; Galasso et al, 2020 ; García-Fernández et al, 2021 ; Shockley et al, 2020 ; Bernabe-Valero et al, 2021 ; Kidd et al, 2021 ), although they do not provide a final say on which specific emotion women are more affected than men, and whether the gender difference is driven by that specific emotion or by the fixed effect of a mental state degraded by COVID-19 side-effects. Furthermore, like those of Guadagni et al (2020) and Ausín et al (2021) , these studies focus on at least one of the emotions we included in our survey, although none of them analyze gender effects on sadness, discouragement, nervousness, boredom, emptiness, and stress within the same survey.…”

Section: Research Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Gender Differences in the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Potentially Addictive Behaviors: An Emotion-Mediated Analysis

et al. 2021

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We study the impact of the spring 2020 lockdown in France on gender-related potentially addictive behaviors and associated negative emotions. We rely on an online survey we administered 1 week after the beginning of the lockdown, with responses collected within 2 weeks after the beginning of the lockdown (N = 1,087). We focus on potential addictions to non-creative activities as food consumption and smartphone usage (female-related), and videogame play (male-related). We find that women were about 1.6 times more likely than men to losing control of their usual diet and about 2.3 times more likely than men to increase smartphone usage, while no significant gender effect is detected as for increased videogame play. This is since the negative emotions driving the increase of female-related non-creative activities (sadness, discouragement, and nervousness) were themselves female-related, while the negative emotions driving the increase of male-related non-creative activities (boredom, emptiness, and stress) were shared by women too. Our study supports the intuition that the same negative emotion induced by COVID-19 side-effects could lead to different potentially addictive behaviors; this difference is explained by the interplay between different gender’s sensitivities to such emotion and different gender’s preferences for specific non-creative activities.

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Section: Research Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Gender Differences in the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Potentially Addictive Behaviors: An Emotion-Mediated Analysis

et al. 2021

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“…One should bear in mind that this measurement is a global judgment that does not consider other processes that are involved in the assessment of emotional state. The fact of making a global judgment in relation to CT has implications in the participant’s categorization in relation to gratitude and affect ( Bernabe-Valero et al, 2021 ). In this way, it was found that participants with poorer affect were more biased when making such global judgments, even when reporting similar values in gratitude.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the authors investigated how this construct is related to moral decisions and response to COVID-19 concluding a positive impact on prosociality. In a previous study, we have found that the four subscales of gratitude (Interpersonal Gratitude, Gratitude in the face of Suffering, Recognition of Gifs, and Expression of Gratitude) were positively associated with positive affect as well as inversely associated with negative affect, indicating that people who are more grateful, both to other people and to transcendental forces, experience a better affective experience ( Bernabe-Valero et al, 2021 ). Moreover, higher scores on gratitude have been also found to be predictors of a lower impact to academic functioning at the end of the semester during the current COVID-19 outbreak ( Bono et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Age is a variable of interest as differences have been described for gratitude with regard to lifespan ( Jiang, 2020 ). Although the general consensus is that older people exhibit a feeling of greater wellbeing and less negative affectivity in a pandemic ( Bernabe-Valero et al, 2021 ), a research found that older adults showed higher positive affect and lower negative affect in comparison to younger adults, but similar patterns were found for both groups ( Ebert et al, 2020 ). On the other hand, gender differences have been reported on affect during the COVID-19 outbreak in some studies ( Terry et al, 2020 ; Pérez-Mengual et al, 2021 ) while others (i.e., Cao et al, 2020 ; Zhang and Ma, 2020 ) found no differences, reflecting inconsistent results that require further clarification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Moderation Effects of Comparative Thinking Between Gratitude and Negative Affect During the COVID-19 Outbreak

et al. 2021

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The aim of this research was to examine the moderation effects of comparative thinking (CT) across the relationship between gratitude and affect during the COVID-19 outbreak. To this purpose, multiple regression as well as moderation analyses were carried out. Age and sex were also addressed as variables of interest as described in previous literature. A sample of 306 north Americans was recruited by crowdsourcing platform ProA to obtain a representative sample based on age and gender. The participants filled in a questionnaire based on comparative thinking in relation to the emotional experience experienced before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, positive and negative affect schedule for positive and negative affect, as well as Gratitude Questionnaire - Six Items Form scores for gratitude. The main results of the current study related to the COVID-19 outbreak can be listed as follows: (i) no differences between CT groups in the gratitude trait, but differences in positive and negative affect did occur; (ii) regression models that included age, gratitude, and affect variables predicted negative and positive affects but gender did not reach the statistical level; (iii) two moderation models predicted affect from gratitude, with the CT variable moderating this effect; this moderation effect was also statistically significant in predicting negative affect but it was not statistically significant in predicting positive affect. These results might be of interest for training programs in applied levels and theoretical models of gratitude.

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“…For example, in France, the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic-related school closures differed between households, depending on access to the Internet and computer equipment (Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, 2020 ). Studies from education and social psychology have shown that experiencing long periods of school closure has negative effects on learning, motivation, and psychosocial well-being of the students (Sprang and Silman, 2013 ; Benke et al, 2020a , b ; Dorn et al, 2020 ; Guessoum et al, 2020 ; Magklara et al, 2020 ; UNESCO, 2020 ; Bernabe-Valero et al, 2021 ; Garcia-Esquinas et al, 2021 ; Rajmil et al, 2021 ). Their direct interaction with friends and teachers at school has also been shown to counteract the negative effects of stressful life events on the well-being and mental health of the students (Shahar et al, 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identified Motivation as a Key Factor for School Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic-Related School Closure

et al. 2021

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On March 16, 2020, French schools suddenly closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and middle school students were asked to study from home with no direct interactions with teachers or classmates. However, school plays an important role in the development of social, intellectual, and mental competencies and can counteract the negative effects of adverse life events on learning and early school dropout. In this study, we investigated how the unusual context of school closure during the COVID-19 pandemic affected school engagement. Specifically, we focused on inter-individual differences in the motivational determinants of school engagement. We thus performed an online survey of 170 students focusing on the time spent on mathematics assignments, motivation regulation, implicit theories of intelligence, such as adopting a growth or a fixed mindset about his/her intellectual abilities, and optimism. Importantly, the students participated in the online survey during the first lockdown period, with schools closed (T1), and the second lockdown period, with schools remaining open (T2). During T1, identified motivation positively predicted the time spent on math homework assignments: the more the students thought that working on math exercises was useful for their future life, the more time they spent studying. Importantly, the link between identified motivation and school engagement was specific to T1, when schools were closed, as indicated by a significant interaction between identified motivations by type of lockdown. These results suggest that having self-determined motivation is of particular importance when students are deprived of social and intellectual interactions with classmates and teachers. This finding paves the way toward the development of wise rational interventions that target identified motivation and can be applied during challenging societal times and adverse, common life events to keep students engaged with school.

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Individual Differences Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Age, Gender, Personality, and Positive Psychology

Cited by 30 publications

References 57 publications

Gender Differences in the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Potentially Addictive Behaviors: An Emotion-Mediated Analysis

Gender Differences in the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Potentially Addictive Behaviors: An Emotion-Mediated Analysis

The Moderation Effects of Comparative Thinking Between Gratitude and Negative Affect During the COVID-19 Outbreak

Identified Motivation as a Key Factor for School Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic-Related School Closure

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