Pandemic-activated Psychological Growth: Significance of extraversion, self-consciousness and COVID-19 related anxiety

Abstract

BackgroundThe sense of threat to health and life in the face of pandemic, accompanied by difficulties imposed by lockdown, may trigger a serious crisis. Among possible consequences of such a crisis may paradoxically be the phenomenon of psychological growth. The aim of this article is to identify predictors of pandemic-activated psychological growth (PPG). The relationships between extraversion, reflective and ruminative self-consciousness and the PPG were the subject of our inquiry. Additionally, a question was posed about the indirect effect of self-consciousness on the PPG through anxiety.Participants and procedureParticipants: The study involved 1206 participants aged 18 to 26 years, who declared that the pandemic situation significantly threatens their important life goals. Procedure: Cross-sectional design. Four online short questionnaire-measures were used: The Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), The Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire (RRQ), The Current Self-disposition Scale (CSS), and The Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI).ResultsExtraversion and reflective self-consciousness were direct predictors of higher PPG. Whereas ruminative self-consciousness was directly related to a lower PPG. There was the indirect effect of ruminative self-consciousness on the PPG through the COVID-19 related anxiety.ConclusionsAlthough the results do not allow to conclude on the permanence of growth effect, finding the PPG predictors considered as beneficial resources for coping with difficult pandemic circumstances appears to be valuable in the current state of affairs.

News media exposure and life satisfaction in the COVID-19 pandemic: a moderated mediation model of COVID-19 fear and worries and gender

“…In subsequent studies, it is also worth taking into consideration the subjects’ possession of children, as it appears that parents experience higher levels of stress than those without children (APA, 2020), and there is also evidence that psychological and parental stress levels increased during the pandemic ( Li et al, 2022 ). Furthermore, in future studies, it is worth considering exploring the moderating effect of personality traits, as some of them have been found to be associated with fear of COVID-19, such as emotional stability or extraversion (e.g., Łoś et al, 2022 ; Oniszczenko & Turek, 2022 ).…”