Motivated Helplessness in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship Between Perceived Ability to Avoid the Virus and Anxiety

IF 1 4区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, CLINICAL

Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology Pub Date : 2020-09-01 DOI:10.1521/jscp.2020.39.6.479

Uri Lifshin, M. Mikulincer, Mabelle Kretchner

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引用次数: 18

Abstract

Introduction: We tested the hypothesis that feelings of helplessness — i e , the perception that one is unable to control and prevent negative events — may serve a protective psychological function against fear and anxiety arousal in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic Methods: We conducted a large scale study with participants from different countries (N = 3,632) to examine if perceived helplessness to avoid being infected with COVID-19 relates to lower levels of fear of CO-VID-19, and state anxiety Results: We found a curvilinear relationship between feeling helpless to avoid being infected with COVID-19 and self-reported anxiety Individuals who reported either low or high degrees of helplessness reported less anxiety and fear of being infected with COVID-19 compared to those who reported moderate levels of helplessness Additional analyses within countries with adequate power (N 160) indicated that this curvilinear effect was found among participants from the USA, UK, Poland, Estonia, and the Netherlands, but not in Argentina and Germany Discussion: We discuss the implications for research on the psychological function of helplessness and for understanding peoples’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic © 2020 Guilford Publications All rights reserved

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Covid-19大流行背景下的动机性无助:感知避免病毒能力与焦虑之间曲线关系的证据

前言:我们检验了这样一种假设，即在2019冠状病毒病大流行的背景下，无助感——即无法控制和预防负面事件的感觉——可能起到保护心理功能，防止恐惧和焦虑的唤醒。我们对来自不同国家的参与者(N = 3,632)进行了一项大规模研究，以检验避免感染COVID-19的感知无助是否与对COVID-19的较低恐惧水平和状态焦虑有关。我们发现，为避免感染COVID-19而感到无助与自我报告的焦虑之间存在曲线关系，与报告中度无助的个体相比，报告低或高无助程度的个体报告的焦虑和对感染COVID-19的恐惧较少。在具有足够权力的国家(n160)进行的额外分析表明，这种曲线效应在美国、英国、波兰、爱沙尼亚、讨论:我们讨论了无助心理功能研究和理解人们对COVID-19大流行的反应的影响©2020 Guilford Publications版权所有

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来源期刊

Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology Multiple-

CiteScore

2.90

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal is devoted to the application of theory and research from social psychology toward the better understanding of human adaptation and adjustment, including both the alleviation of psychological problems and distress (e.g., psychopathology) and the enhancement of psychological well-being among the psychologically healthy. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) traditionally defined psychopathology (e.g., depression), common emotional and behavioral problems in living (e.g., conflicts in close relationships), the enhancement of subjective well-being, and the processes of psychological change in everyday life (e.g., self-regulation) and professional settings (e.g., psychotherapy and counseling). Articles reporting the results of theory-driven empirical research are given priority, but theoretical articles, review articles, clinical case studies, and essays on professional issues are also welcome. Articles describing the development of new scales (personality or otherwise) or the revision of existing scales are not appropriate for this journal.