Predictors of work engagement in professional musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic

While the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 crisis is impacting many areas of society, some professions are more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than others, especially by the feeling of insecurity about future working conditions. The present research was conducted during the pandemic and assesses the extent to which musicians’ desire to develop professionally, their work engagement and their motivation to study further in the context of job insecurity, intolerance to uncertainty, and emotion regulation were affected. A cross-sectional design was used. The participants were 167 Romanian professional musicians. The results show that cognitive reappraisal and achievement-striving moderate the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and work engagement, more specifically: cognitive reappraisal and achievement-striving are moderators and buffer the negative relationship between qualitative job insecurity and work engagement. Given that the current context is marked by uncertainty, future studies could investigate the effect that intervention for managing emotions can have on increasing well-being and work engagement.