Since it was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, coronavirus disease COVID-19 has significantly altered the lives of virtually everyone in the world.
To face this great health challenge, most governments chose to implement containment measures that included the closure of kindergartens, schools, universities and all non-essential businesses, which was complemented by strong restrictions on the mobility of people. .
Assessing wellness
Predictably, a crisis of this scope can have an effect on the subjective well-being of individuals, including life satisfaction and experiences of positive and negative affect. In order to determine this effect, a team of psychologists carried out a study in which they examined the changes in the subjective well-being of 1,588 individuals between December 2019 and May 2020.
For the study, the researchers defined and measured subjective well-being as high levels of life satisfaction and the frequent experience of positive feelings such as joy, as well as the sporadic experience of negative feelings such as anger or fear.
People who perceived the crisis as a threat, denied it or blamed themselves for the consequences, recorded the greatest decreases in subjective well-being.Personal assessment of the pandemic, for example, as a threat or challenge, as well as various functional and dysfunctional coping strategies, such as problem solving or alcohol consumption, were examined as factors influencing subjective well-being during initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the scientists found no evidence of changes in subjective well-being in people in the period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, between December 2019 and March 2020, this changed significantly in the weeks following the crisis.
Consequences of the pandemic
People who rated the pandemic as challenging and that its consequences were controllable generally showed a higher level of subjective well-being. Furthermore, people reported greater subjective well-being when they actively solved problems, focused on the positive aspects of the crisis, and received social support.
On the other hand, those who perceived the crisis as a threat, denied it or blamed themselves for the consequences of the crisis felt less well. The same was true for people who tried to cope with the crisis with alcohol or drugs.
The researchers defined and measured subjective well-being as high levels of life satisfaction and the frequent experience of positive feelings such as joy.Negative affect was positively related to assessments of threat and centrality, denial, substance use, and self-blame, and negatively related to assessments of controllability and emotional support.
These findings imply that the COVID-19 pandemic represents not only a major health and economic crisis, but also has a psychological dimension, as it can be associated with declines in key facets of people’s subjective well-being.
In reference to these results, researcher Hannes Zacher, professor at the University of Leipzig School of Psychology and co-author of the study, recommended:
“Psychology professionals should address potential decreases in subjective well-being with their patients and try to improve their overall ability to perform functional stress assessments and effective coping strategies.”
Referencia: Individual Differences and Changes in Subjective Wellbeing During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Psychologist, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000702
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