The Cognitive Component of Subjective Well-Being During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

COVID-19 changes radically people’s daily lives, endangering their well-being. Under such conditions, knowledge on psychological characteristics of pandemic situation experiencing and its impact on life satisfaction as a component of an individual’s subjective well-being is of paramount importance for solving the mental health problems during the pandemic situation. The sample consisted of 465 people (160 men, 34.4%; 305 women, 65.6%) aged 18 to 85 years (M = 35.53; SD = 11.64). As a result, two-thirds of the respondents indicated that the pandemic significantly affected their lives. This was a situation with a high stress-cumulating potential. About 65% of the respondents were worried about possible economic losses, 35% had already experienced worsened financial income. The third of the respondents noted that their professional prospects had deteriorated. Most respondents were concerned about the potential risk of virus contracting. Health changes during introduced restrictive measures because of the pandemic were not felt by most respondents. The assessed impact of the coronavirus pandemic on people’s life was related to the respondents’ perceptions of changes in their professional, financial spheres, health and to the anxiety about possible future negative economic and medical consequences. An individual’s subjective conclusion on the pandemic’s impact did not depend, in general, on socio-demographic factors. According to E. Diner’s model, our results show in favour of the stability of the cognitive component of an individual’s subjective well-being after almost a year of coronavirus in Ukraine. At the moment, there is no reason to claim changes in assessed life satisfaction. It is possible that these results demonstrate only initial changes in the pandemic situation and/or coronavirus stress factors on life satisfaction are mediated by personal characteristics, which are promising areas for further research. The higher life satisfaction was, the less noticeable the negative consequences of COVID-19 were.