Emotion regulation, hope, and optimism during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of age and personality.

<h4>Aims</h4>This study examined age-related differences between young and older adults' emotion regulation, hope, and optimism 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak. Whether personality explained such outcomes was also examined.<h4>Method</h4>A sample of 228 young adults a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Elena Carbone, Graziana Lenti, Enrico Sella, Angelica Moè, Erika Borella
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2024-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0296205&type=printable
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Summary:<h4>Aims</h4>This study examined age-related differences between young and older adults' emotion regulation, hope, and optimism 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak. Whether personality explained such outcomes was also examined.<h4>Method</h4>A sample of 228 young adults and 161 older adults was interviewed in April-May 2021 to complete questionnaires assessing cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES) emotion regulation strategies use, optimism, hope (agency and pathways components), and personality traits.<h4>Results</h4>Older adults reported greater CR and ES use, optimism, and hope-agency levels than young adults, whereas no age differences emerged for hope-pathway scores. Personality traits (more consistently emotional stability) contributed to explaining CR and ES use, and greater hopeful and optimistic dispositions.<h4>Conclusions</h4>These findings confirm older adults' advantage in facing the emotional and psychological fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in its third wave. They also underscore the importance of considering personality to depict individual profiles prone to experiencing long-term negative emotional/psychological consequences of emergencies as COVID-19.
ISSN:1932-6203