The selective effect of lockdown experience on citizens' perspectives: A multilevel, multiple informant approach to personal and community resilience duringCOVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

In the face of the first wave of COVID‐19 contagion, citizens all over the world experienced concerns for their safety and health, as well as prolonged lockdowns – which brought about limitations but also unforeseen opportunities for personal growth. Broad variability in these psychological responses to such unprecedented experiences emerged. This study addresses this variability by investigating the role of personal and community resilience. Personal resilience, collective resilience, community disaster management ability, provided information by local authorities, and citizens' focus on COVID‐19‐related personal concerns and lockdown‐related opportunities for personal growth were detected through an online questionnaire. Multilevel modelling was run with data from 3,745 Italian citizens. The potential of personal resilience as a driver for individuals to overcome adverse situations with positive outcomes was confirmed. Differently, the components of community resilience showed more complex paths, highlighting the need to pay more attention to its role in the face of far‐reaching adverse events which hardly test individuals' as well as communities' adaptability and agency skills. The complexities linked to the multi‐component and system‐specific nature of resilience, as well as potential paths towards making the most out of citizens' and communities' ones, emerge. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Environmental mastery and purpose of life during COVID‐19‐related lockdown: A study deepening the role of personal and community resilience

“…On the one hand, when it came to feelings of effectiveness in managing the surrounding environment, opportunities, and resources (that is, environmental mastery, Ryff & Singer, 2008 ), belonging to more resilient neighbourhoods favoured individuals in understanding the need for lockdown measures. This may have depended on community resilience being able to promote a more thoughtful attitude towards both the threats lockdown experience posed and the foreseen opportunities for personal growth it offered (Procentese, Gatti, Rochira, et al, 2022 ). Indeed, a thoughtful attitude may have allowed individuals to understand the actual sources and implications of the lack of control they perceived, as well as to clearly detect the links to the pandemic (Gattino et al, 2022 ).…”

“…As a possible explanation for such results, Mannarini et al ( 2021 ) emphasised that the effect of community resilience may be limited due to it requiring individuals to evaluate their community's instrumental capacity to manage emergencies and recover from them. Furthermore, Procentese, Gatti, Rochira, et al ( 2022 ) underlined that such unexpected results may depend on community resilience, which is often conceptualised as the broad ability to face stressful circumstances at large – as it is in the FLCRS. Conversely, when respondents are asked to evaluate their community's resilience with reference to a specific, concrete disaster, its impact shapes differently (Procentese, Gatti, Rochira, et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Furthermore, Procentese, Gatti, Rochira, et al ( 2022 ) underlined that such unexpected results may depend on community resilience, which is often conceptualised as the broad ability to face stressful circumstances at large – as it is in the FLCRS. Conversely, when respondents are asked to evaluate their community's resilience with reference to a specific, concrete disaster, its impact shapes differently (Procentese, Gatti, Rochira, et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Since the COVID‐19 pandemic represented an emergency involving entire communities and requiring community‐level management strategies too (Gatti & Procentese, 2021 ; Procentese, Gatti, Rochira, et al, 2022 ), both individual and community resilience require further attention with reference to it. Indeed, as far as being similar, they represent linked yet not overlapping constructs (Berkes & Ross, 2013 ; Pfefferbaum et al, 2008 ; Ungar, 2011 ).…”

“…However, some resilient and adaptive reactions aimed at coping with the restrictions and grabbing the possibilities they brought about emerged too (e.g., Asmundson et al, 2021 ; Gattino et al, 2022 ; Migliorini et al, 2021 ; Tamiolaki & Kalaitzaki, 2020 ), suggesting that individuals' ability to adjust to lockdown restrictions and cope with their negative impacts varied across individuals as well as communities depending on the available resources (Conversano et al, 2020 ; Danioni et al, 2021 ; Gattino et al, 2022 ; Pakenham et al, 2020 ; Prati & Mancini, 2021 ; Procentese, Gatti, Rochira, et al, 2022 ). While few studies deepened the understanding of the factors potentially explaining this selective effect with reference to the COVID‐19 pandemic, the understanding of the rationale underlying stay‐at‐home orders was already reckoned as a factor able to lessen the negative impact of quarantine measures, that is, individual stay‐at‐home orders, during previous epidemics (Blendon et al, 2004 ; Brooks et al, 2020 ; Reynolds et al, 2008 ).…”