RAPID: Coping with COVID-19: Emotion Regulation Strategy Implications for Behavior, Social Outcomes, and Well-Being

2020年的新冠肺炎疫情正在产生一系列非同寻常的压力源和需求。该国正面临一场危及生命的健康危机和相关的经济后果。意想不到、不可预测、矛盾和不确定的信息以及低个人控制力加剧了这种压力。与此同时，人们被要求采取一系列不熟悉的社交疏远和卫生行为，试图平化冠状病毒传播的曲线。实施疾控中心推荐的行为既需要情绪调节，也需要努力的自我控制。对情绪调节的研究--人们试图改变或改变自己情绪的方式--区分了几种策略，如在令人沮丧的事件中寻找“一线希望”，寻求社会支持，将问题智能化，以及通过电视和游戏分散注意力。冠状病毒大流行提供了一套独特的环境，在这种情况下，可以检查对不同情绪调节策略的依赖如何预测人们的健康相关行为和情绪幸福感。这项研究的发现将为未来的公共政策建议提供参考，这些建议鼓励在压力相关的情况下促进健康行为。这项研究考察了16种不同情绪调节策略的日常使用在多大程度上预测了CDC推荐的社交距离、卫生和健康的社交行为的采用/维持。这项研究还考察了这些情绪调节策略如何影响各种亲社会和反社会行为、心理健康和孤独感。在三周的时间里，参与者每天完成一份问卷，衡量他们当天使用特定情绪调节技术的情况；每隔七天，他们还回答有关他们行为的问题(例如，戴口罩、避免社交聚会、科技中介社交、捐赠资金或用品、囤积)，以及前一周的孤独、焦虑和抑郁。数据分析将询问哪些情绪调节策略或策略组合预测最理想的行为和幸福结果。这项研究测试了重要的情绪调节理论及其在独特的冠状病毒大流行背景下的适用性，并有可能为未来的压力相关干预努力提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is producing an extraordinary set of stressors and demands. The country is facing a life-threatening health crisis and associated economic fallout. That stress is exacerbated by unexpectedness, unpredictability, contradictory and uncertain information, and low personal control. At the same time, people are asked to adopt a series of unfamiliar social distancing and hygiene behaviors in an attempt to “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus’s spread. Enacting the CDC-recommended behaviors requires both emotion regulation and effortful self-control. Research on emotion regulation – the ways people attempt to alter or change their own emotions – distinguishes among several strategies such as looking for a “silver lining” in upsetting events, reaching out for social support, intellectualizing the problem, and distraction with television and games. The coronavirus pandemic provides a unique set of circumstances in which to examine how reliance on different emotion regulation strategies predicts people’s health-related behaviors and emotional well-being given these unusual circumstances. Findings from this research will inform future public policy recommendations that encourage health-promoting behaviors in stress-related situations. This research examines the extent to which daily use of 16 distinct emotion regulation strategies predicts adoption/maintenance of CDC-recommended social distancing, hygiene and healthy social engagement behaviors. The research also examines how these emotion regulation strategies influence various prosocial and antisocial behaviors, psychological well-being, and loneliness. For three weeks, participants complete a daily questionnaire measuring their use of specific emotion regulation techniques that day; every seventh day they also answer questions about their behavior (e.g., mask-wearing, avoiding social gatherings, technology-mediated socializing, donating money or supplies, hoarding), as well as loneliness, anxiety, and depression, during the previous week. Data analyses will ask which emotion regulation strategies, or combinations of strategies, predict the most desirable profile of behavioral and well-being outcomes. The research tests important emotion regulation theories and their applicability within the unique coronavirus pandemic context and has the potential to inform future stress-related intervention efforts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.