The protective role of positivity and emotional self-efficacy beliefs in times of the COVID-19 pandemic

The impact of positivity and self-efficacy beliefs in managing anger, fear, and sadness on positive and negative affect was examined at three time points over 9 months. Data from 1,401 students (73.4% women) attending an online University in Spain were collected before the beginning and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of a random intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed that the strongest relationships in terms of effect size occurred at the trait level, in which participants who had a general higher positivity over time were also those who reported, in general, higher self-efficacy, higher positive affect, and lower negative affect than their counterparts. At the within-person level, while controlling for stable (trait-like) individual differences, higher than usual levels (state-like) of positivity in January 2020 predicted higher than usual levels of emotional self-efficacy beliefs and lower than usual levels of negative affect in June 2020. During the same transition, higher than usual levels of negative affect in January 2020 predicted lower than usual levels of emotional self-efficacy in June 2020. Moreover, higher than usual levels of self-efficacy in June 2020 predicted higher than usual levels of positivity in September 2020. We did not find any predictive effect for positive affect. The results pointed to the protective role of both positivity and regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs mostly against negative affect, corroborating previous findings suggesting a virtuous circle of reciprocal influence between positivity and regulatory emotional self-efficacy. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.