Iron fists and velvet gloves: Investigating the associations between the stringency of governments' responses to COVID-19, stress, and compliance in the early stages of the pandemic.

To tackle the spread of COVID-19, governments worldwide have implemented restrictive public health behavioural measures. Whether and when these measures lead to positive or negative psychological outcomes is still debated. In this study, drawing on a large sample of individuals (Ntotal  = 89,798) from 45 nations, we investigated whether the stringency of public health measures implemented at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March-May 2020 was associated with individuals' levels of stress and compliance. Moreover, we addressed the question of how these associations may be moderated by the measures' implementation lag, nations' tolerance for unequal distributions of power (i.e., power distance), and individuals' institutional trust. Linear mixed models suggested that slower implementation of less stringent measures was associated with higher stress and lower compliance. Also, rapid implementation of stricter measures was associated with a mild increase in stress. Such effects were especially pronounced in countries with less tolerance for inequality. Albeit significant, the moderating effect of institutional trust was very small. The results suggest that it may be important to consider the measures' implementation lag when tackling the spread of COVID-19, but findings should be interpreted in relation to the data collection period.

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 12 May 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4878591.v1.