The Influence of COVID-19 on the Well-Being of People: Big Data Methods for Capturing the Well-Being of Working Adults and Protective Factors Nationwide

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected the lives of people across the globe. To investigate the mental impact of COVID-19 and to respond to the call of researchers for the use of unobtrusive and intensive measurement in capturing time-sensitive psychological concepts (e.g., affect), we used big data methods to investigate the impact of COVID-19 by analyzing 348,933 tweets that people posted from April 1, 2020 to April 24, 2020. The dataset covers 2,231 working adults, who are from 454 counties across 48 states in the United States. In this study, we theorize the similarity and dissimilarity between COVID-19 and other common stressors. Similar to other stressors, pandemic severity negatively influenced the well-being of people by increasing negative affect. However, we did not find an influence of pandemic severity on the positive affect of the people. Dissimilar to other stressors, the protective factors for people during COVID-19 are not common factors that make people resilient to stress and they echo the unique experience during COVID-19. Moreover, we analyzed the text content of 348,933 tweets through Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) and word cloud analysis to further reveal the psychological impact of COVID-19 and why the protective factors make people resilient to the mental impact of COVID-19. These exploratory analyses revealed the specific emotions that people experienced and the topics that people are concerned about during the pandemic. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The influence of big five personality traits on academic performance, well-being and home study satisfaction in corona times

“…The results indicate that positive psychological well-being in the pandemic Home Study situation was strongly related to the personality factor conscientiousness of students, thus confirming our hypothesis. The results fit with the findings that pandemic adversity does not affect the well-being of conscientious individuals (Zhang et al, 2021). One possible explanation for this effect is rule Big five personality and Home Study performance -17 -compliance and sense of responsibility, which are associated with high levels of the personality factor (Roberts et al, 2009).…”

“…Concerning the compliance with pandemic restrictions, conscientious people are expected to have fewer problems with restrictions due to the pronounced conformity to rules and their sense of responsibility (Krupić et al, 2021). Also, conscientiousness helps to withstand the negative psychological influence of the COVID-19 pandemic (Zhang et al, 2021). "Extraversion", measures an individual's sociability.…”

Parenting and child well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak: The importance of marital adjustment and parental self-efficacy

“…Overall, this study adds to previous research by suggesting that ecological and interpersonal aspects play a key-role on people's well-being, decreasing the negative effects of fear and uncertainty (Camisasca et al, 2016;Coyne et al, 2020;Cluver et al, 2020), even during stressful events, such as the pandemic situation of COVID-19. This is particularly relevant because most of the research has focused on individual consequences to mental health (Huang & Zhao, 2020;Tull et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020), namely on a systematic review (Luo et al, 2020), leaving less clear the consequences to family relations, namely marital adjustment, perception of parental self-efficacy, or child's development during this period.…”

Compliance With Epidemic Prevention Guidelines Among Wuhan Citizens Under the Stressors of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Multidistrict Comparative Analysis

“…When people face despair from resource depletion, it may also trigger the individual defense mechanism with the aim of self-protection that results in showing some irrational behavior, but people will use critical resources in response to the current environment stress scenarios to alleviate the negative effects ( Hobfoll, 2011 ). Resource loss is the main component in the stress process, and COVID-19 is likely to threaten the resources of an individual from many aspects ( Zhang et al, 2021 ). COVID-19 is similar to other stressors, in that it brings about cognitive, physical, and emotional stress ( Zhang et al, 2021 .).…”

“…Resource loss is the main component in the stress process, and COVID-19 is likely to threaten the resources of an individual from many aspects ( Zhang et al, 2021 ). COVID-19 is similar to other stressors, in that it brings about cognitive, physical, and emotional stress ( Zhang et al, 2021 .).…”