IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i23p15699-d984219.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

You Do Not Have to Get through This Alone: Interpersonal Emotion Regulation and Psychosocial Resources during the COVID-19 Pandemic across Four Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Olenka Dworakowski

    (URPP “Dynamics of Healthy Aging”, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland
    Department of Psychology—Gerontopsychology, University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Zilla M. Huber

    (URPP “Dynamics of Healthy Aging”, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland
    Department of Psychology—Gerontopsychology, University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Tabea Meier

    (School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA)

  • Ryan L. Boyd

    (Independent Researcher, Washington, DC 20036, USA)

  • Mike Martin

    (URPP “Dynamics of Healthy Aging”, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland
    Department of Psychology—Gerontopsychology, University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
    Competence Center Gerontology, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Andrea B. Horn

    (URPP “Dynamics of Healthy Aging”, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland
    Department of Psychology—Gerontopsychology, University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
    Competence Center Gerontology, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland)

Abstract

While experiencing the unpredictable events of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are likely to turn to people in order to regulate our emotions. In this research, we investigate how this interpersonal emotion regulation is connected to affective symptoms, above and beyond intra personal emotion regulation. Furthermore, we explore whether perceived psychosocial resources moderate these associations, i.e., if individuals reporting healthier social connections benefit differently from interpersonal emotion regulation. N = 1401 participants from the USA, UK, Germany, and Switzerland completed an online survey that included text samples. Affective symptoms (depression, adjustment disorder, fear of COVID-19) were examined based on self-reported as well as language-based indicators. As psychosocial resources, we examined social support, loneliness, attachment style, and trust. We defined latent variables for adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation and analyzed how they were associated with affective symptoms controlling for intrapersonal emotion regulation. Further, we analyzed how they interacted with psychosocial resources. Maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation strategies were associated with affective symptoms. With lower psychosocial resources, the associations between interpersonal emotion regulation and depressive symptoms were more pronounced. The results highlight that maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation is associated with worse mental health. These effects are not buffered by more psychosocial resources and are stronger for people with low psychosocial resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Olenka Dworakowski & Zilla M. Huber & Tabea Meier & Ryan L. Boyd & Mike Martin & Andrea B. Horn, 2022. "You Do Not Have to Get through This Alone: Interpersonal Emotion Regulation and Psychosocial Resources during the COVID-19 Pandemic across Four Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-20, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15699-:d:984219
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15699/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15699/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albert Satorra & Peter Bentler, 2010. "Ensuring Positiveness of the Scaled Difference Chi-square Test Statistic," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 243-248, June.
    2. Theo G van Tilburg & Stephanie Steinmetz & Elske Stolte & Henriëtte van der Roest & Daniel H de Vries & Deborah Carr, 2021. "Loneliness and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study Among Dutch Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 76(7), pages 249-255.
    3. Manfred E Beutel & Elmar Brähler & Jörg Wiltink & Matthias Michal & Eva M Klein & Claus Jünger & Philipp S Wild & Thomas Münzel & Maria Blettner & Karl Lackner & Stefan Nickels & Ana N Tibubos, 2017. "Emotional and tangible social support in a German population-based sample: Development and validation of the Brief Social Support Scale (BS6)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(10), pages 1-12, October.
    4. Katherine Pascuzzo & Ellen Moss & Chantal Cyr, 2015. "Attachment and Emotion Regulation Strategies in Predicting Adult Psychopathology," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(3), pages 21582440156, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. César Merino-Soto & Gina Chávez-Ventura & Verónica López-Fernández & Guillermo M. Chans & Filiberto Toledano-Toledano, 2022. "Learning Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-L): Psychometric and Measurement Invariance Evidence in Peruvian Undergraduate Students," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.
    2. Anastasia Stathopoulou & Tommy Kweku Quansah & George Balabanis, 2022. "The Blinding Effects of Team Identification on Sports Corruption: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(2), pages 511-529, August.
    3. Suzie Noten & Annerieke Stoop & Jasper De Witte & Elleke Landeweer & Floor Vinckers & Nina Hovenga & Leonieke C. van Boekel & Katrien G. Luijkx, 2022. "“Precious Time Together Was Taken Away”: Impact of COVID-19 Restrictive Measures on Social Needs and Loneliness from the Perspective of Residents of Nursing Homes, Close Relatives, and Volunteers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-18, March.
    4. Lars Petersen & Jacob Hörisch & Kathleen Jacobs, 2021. "Worse is worse and better doesn't matter?: The effects of favorable and unfavorable environmental information on consumers’ willingness to pay," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(5), pages 1338-1356, October.
    5. Saideh Garousi & Ali Amirkafi & Faezeh Mohammadi & Behshid Garrusi, 2023. "Iranian older adults women: The Impact of COVID-19 and Coping Strategies," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4409-4433, October.
    6. F Rodrigues & R Macedo & DS Teixeira & L Cid & D Monteiro, 2020. "Motivation in sport and exercise: a comparison between the BRSQ and BREQ," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1335-1350, August.
    7. Antonio J. Rodríguez-Hidalgo & Anabel Alcívar & Mauricio Herrera-López, 2019. "Traditional Bullying and Discriminatory Bullying Around Special Educational Needs: Psychometric Properties of Two Instruments to Measure It," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-15, January.
    8. Latikka, Rita & Koivula, Aki & Oksa, Reetta & Savela, Nina & Oksanen, Atte, 2022. "Loneliness and psychological distress before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Relationships with social media identity bubbles," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    9. Chen, Tingting & Li, Fuli & Chen, Xiao-Ping & Ou, Zhanying, 2018. "Innovate or die: How should knowledge-worker teams respond to technological turbulence?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 1-16.
    10. Bouzaghrane, Mohamed Amine & Obeid, Hassan & Villas-Boas, Sofia B. & Walker, Joan, 2024. "Influence of telecommuting on out-of-home time use and diversity of locations visited: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    11. Díaz, Estrella & Martín-Consuegra, David & Esteban, Águeda, 2015. "Perceptions of service cannibalisation: The moderating effect of the type of travel agency," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 329-342.
    12. Joana R. Casanova & Leandro S. Almeida & Francisco Peixoto & Rui-Bártolo Ribeiro & João Marôco, 2019. "Academic Expectations Questionnaire: A Proposal for a Short Version," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(1), pages 21582440188, January.
    13. Yu Song & Chenfei Qian & Susan Pickard, 2021. "Age-Related Digital Divide during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-13, October.
    14. Veljko Jovanović & Maksim Rudnev & Christ Billy Aryanto & Beatrice Adriana Balgiu & Corrado Caudek & Jesus Alfonso D. Datu & Tharina Guse & Theodoros Kyriazos & Louise Lambert & Krishna Kumar Mishra &, 2024. "A Cross-Cultural Evaluation of Diener’s Tripartite Model of Subjective Well-Being Across 16 Countries," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 1-25, August.
    15. Sumeet Lal & Trinh Xuan Thi Nguyen & Abdul-Salam Sulemana & Pattaphol Yuktadatta & Mostafa Saidur Rahim Khan & Yoshihiko Kadoya, 2022. "A Longitudinal Study on Loneliness during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-17, September.
    16. Sze Yan Liu & Jiehui Li & Lydia F. Leon & Ralf Schwarzer & James E. Cone, 2022. "The Bidirectional Relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Social Support in a 9/11-Exposed Cohort: A Longitudinal Cross-Lagged Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-10, February.
    17. Álvaro-Francisco Morote & María Hernández, 2022. "What Do School Children Know about Climate Change? A Social Sciences Approach," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, April.
    18. Majid Ghasemy, 2022. "Estimating models with independent observed variables based on the PLSe2 methodology: a Monte Carlo simulation study," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 4129-4159, December.
    19. A. Felipe & N. Martín & P. Miranda & L. Pardo, 2018. "Statistical inference in constrained latent class models for multinomial data based on $$\phi $$ ϕ -divergence measures," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 12(3), pages 605-636, September.
    20. Gibson, Samantha & Hsu, Maxwell K. & Zhou, Xing, 2022. "Convenience stores in the digital age: A focus on the customer experience and revisit intentions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15699-:d:984219. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.