Abstract
Both cognitive appraisals of risks associated with the specific disease and affective response to crisis situations have been shown to shape an individual response to pandemics. COVID-19 pandemic and measures introduced to contain it present an unparalleled challenge to mental well-being worldwide. Here, we examine the relationship between self-reported cognitive biases (CB) and emotion regulation skills (ER), COVID-19 risk perception and affective response, and mental well-being (MWB). Five Hundred and Eleven individuals completed General Health Questionnaire, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS) as well as scales measuring COVID-19 risk perception and affective response during the initial days of the epidemic in Poland. We used path and bootstrapping analyses to examine the hypothesis that CB may shape MWB during COVID-19 pandemic both directly and indirectly by (i) decreasing ER capacity and (ii) by increasing COVID-19 risk perception and affective response. Negative effect of CB and positive effect of ER via cognitive reappraisal on MWB were observed in participants. Furthermore, in line with our hypothesis, we observed indirect effects of CB via increased COVID-19 risk perception and affective response and decreased use of reappraisal strategy, which all, in turn, were related to MWB. Finally, we found an indirect effect of CB on MWB through double mediation of suppression strategies and COVID-19 affective response. Results of the current study suggest that CB, which have been shown to be linked to a variety of mental health symptoms in non-clinical populations, may exacerbate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health outcomes.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus outbreak in late 2019 in Wuhan (Hubei, China) and its rapid worldwide spread have led to the pandemic on a scale not seen since the Spanish flu epidemic in the early 20th century
We found that the effect of cognitive biases on general well-being was positively mediated through use of emotion regulation strategy of cognitive reappraisal (β = 0.024, 95% CI = 0.008 to 0.05, p = 0.001), COVID-19 risk perception (β = 0.013, 95% CI = 0.002 to 0.033, p = 0.015) and affective response to pandemic (β = 0.049, 95% CI = 0.024 to 0.068, p < 0.001)
We have observed that cognitive biases, as measured by self-assessment methods, may impact mental well-being via multiple possible pathways
Summary
The novel coronavirus outbreak in late 2019 in Wuhan (Hubei, China) and its rapid worldwide spread have led to the pandemic on a scale not seen since the Spanish flu epidemic in the early 20th century. The COVID-19 pandemic enforced abrupt changes in the functioning of world and state organs, healthcare systems, economy and education, as well as the everyday lives and habits of individual people. Many countries, including Poland, implemented the preventive measures aiming at slowing down the COVID-19 spread and “flattening the curve” of infection increase by minimizing the number of concurrently active cases. Since the state of epidemic threat has been declared by the Polish government on March 13th (soon after the first fatal COVID-19 cases occurred), the most important strategies introduced in Poland were travel and gathering restrictions, mandatory quarantine, lockdown of educational institutes and an obligation of wearing masks while in public. Unlike some of the European countries with the highest infection rates (e.g., Italy and Spain), Poland did not implement any general lock-down
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