Caci Barbara, Miceli Silvana, Scrima Fabrizio, Cardaci Maurizio
Department of Psychology, Educational Science and Human Movement, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
Département de Psychologie, Université de Rouen, Moint Saint-Aignan, France.
Front Psychol. 2020 Oct 13;11:574393. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574393. eCollection 2020.
The Italian government adopted measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection from March 9, 2020, to May 4, 2020 and imposed a phase of social distancing and self-isolation to all adult citizens. Although justified and necessary, psychologists question the impact of this process of COVID-19 isolation on the mental health of the population. Hence, this paper investigated the relationship between neuroticism, boredom, fantasy engagement, perceived control over time, and the fear of COVID-19. Specifically, we performed a cross-sectional study aimed at testing an integrative moderated mediation model. Our model assigned the boredom to the mediation role and both the fantasy engagement and perceived control of time to the role of moderators in the relationship between neuroticism and the fear of COVID-19. A sample of 301 subjects, mainly women (68.8%), aged between 18 and 57 years ( = 22.12 years; = 6.29), participated in a survey conducted in the 1st-week lockdown phase 2 in Italy from May 7 to 18, 2020. Results suggested that neuroticism is crucial in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, in line with literature showing high neurotic people having greater emotional reactivity and scarce resources to manage stress. We also found that people with high neuroticism tend to feel bored, and the relationship between neuroticism and boredom seems enhanced if one is involved in negative fantasies. Therefore, this result could also explain the positive effect between boredom and fear of COVID-19 we found in the current study. However, our data show that perceived control over time moderates the association between boredom and fear toward COVID-19. Having a high perceived control over time allows people to reduce boredom's effect on fear of COVID-19. In conclusion, we retain that psychological treatment programs could improve the individuals' perceived control over time to modulate anxiety toward the fear of COVID-19 and promote psychological well-being.
意大利政府于2020年3月9日至2020年5月4日采取措施防止2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）感染传播，并对所有成年公民实施了一段时间的社交距离和自我隔离措施。尽管这些措施合理且必要，但心理学家对COVID-19隔离过程对民众心理健康的影响提出了质疑。因此，本文研究了神经质、无聊、幻想投入、对时间的感知控制以及对COVID-19的恐惧之间的关系。具体而言，我们进行了一项横断面研究，旨在测试一个整合的调节中介模型。我们的模型将无聊设定为中介角色，将幻想投入和对时间的感知控制都设定为神经质与对COVID-19的恐惧之间关系的调节变量。301名受试者参与了2020年5月7日至18日在意大利封锁第二阶段第一周进行的一项调查，这些受试者主要为女性（68.8%），年龄在18至57岁之间（平均年龄=22.12岁；标准差=6.29）。结果表明，神经质在应对COVID-19大流行中至关重要，这与文献研究结果一致，即高神经质的人具有更强的情绪反应性且应对压力的资源匮乏。我们还发现，高神经质的人往往容易感到无聊，如果一个人陷入消极幻想，神经质与无聊之间的关系似乎会增强。因此，这一结果也可以解释我们在当前研究中发现的无聊与对COVID-19的恐惧之间的正向关系。然而，我们的数据表明，对时间的感知控制会调节无聊与对COVID-19的恐惧之间的关联。对时间有较高的感知控制能力可以使人们减少无聊对COVID-19恐惧的影响。总之，我们认为心理治疗方案可以提高个体对时间的感知控制能力，以调节对COVID-19恐惧的焦虑情绪并促进心理健康。
