After the decision to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, athletes had to adjust to a novel situation with feelings of uncertainty and insecurity. Grounded in ...Self-Determination Theory, this study was the first to examine whether different motivational profiles among Paralympic athletes can be identified, and to link these profiles with the athletes' emotional, cognitive, and performance-related outcomes in times of a pandemic.
Five months before the start of the Paralympic Games, the participants (
= 32; mean age = 33.2 ± 6.8 years) completed an online questionnaire measuring their demographics, basic psychological needs, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, general well-being, and motivational self-regulation strategies. Two months after the Games, they completed a second online questionnaire measuring their actual and perceived performance at the past Games.
Through K-means cluster analysis, three distinct clusters were identified based on the athletes' dominant type of motivation, these are, dominantly amotivated (
= 11), autonomously motivated (
= 12), and controlled motivated (
= 9). Comparisons of athletes' emotional, cognitive, and performance-related outcomes depending on their motivational profile revealed that the athletes with a dominantly amotivated profile had the least adaptive outcomes (i.e., low need satisfaction, high need frustration, and more depressive symptoms). Athletes with a dominantly autonomously motivated profile made less use of controlling self-motivating strategies compared to the other two profiles. Moreover, their actual performance at the Paralympic Games was better.
Although none of the athletes were at severe risk for depression or showed extremely high levels of stress, these results confirm that improving the quality of athletes' motivation can safeguard their well-being and enhance performance in Paralympic Sports.
Across the world, measures were taken to contain the spreading of the COVID-19 virus. Many of these measures caused a sudden rupture in people’s daily routines, thereby eliciting considerable ...uncertainty and potentially also hampering the satisfaction of individuals’ psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Drawing upon Maslow’s Hierarchical Need Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study examined the unique role of felt insecurity and the psychological needs, as well as their dynamic interplay, in the prediction of mental health. A large and heterogeneous sample of adults (
N
= 5118;
M
age = 43.45 years) was collected during the first ten days of the lockdown period in Flanders, Belgium. A subsample (
N
= 835
, M
age = 41.39) participated during a second wave one week later. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that felt insecurity, need satisfaction and need frustration all independently predicted various positive (life satisfaction, sleep quality) and negative indicators depressive symptoms, anxiety) of mental health, with little systematic evidence for interactions between the predictors. The pattern of findings obtained concurrently largely held in the longitudinal analyses. Finally, results showed that associations between felt insecurity and lower concurrent and prospective mental health were partially mediated by need satisfaction and frustration, with especially psychological need frustration predicting changes in mental health over time. Overall, the findings suggest that satisfaction of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is not just a ‘luxury good’. Satisfaction of these needs is important also in times of insecurity, while need frustration represents a risk factor for maladjustment during such times.
Abstract
Objective
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated quarantine measures highly impacted parental psychological well-being. Parents of children with chronic diseases might be specifically ...vulnerable as they already face multiple challenges to provide adequate care for their child. The research questions of the current study were twofold: (a) to examine whether parents of children with a chronic disease experienced more anxiety and depression compared to parents of healthy children and (b) to examine a series of risk factors for worsened well-being (i.e., depression, anxiety, and sleep problems), such as sociodemographic variables, COVID-19-specific variables (i.e., financial worries, living space, and perceived quality of health care), and parental psychological experiences (i.e., parental burn-out and less positive parenting experiences).
Methods
Parents of children with a chronic disease (i.e., the clinical sample; N = 599 and 507 for Research Questions 1 and 2, respectively) and parents of healthy children (i.e., the reference sample: N = 417) filled out an online survey.
Results
Findings demonstrated that the parents in the clinical sample reported higher levels of anxiety than parents in the reference sample. Analyses within the clinical sample indicated that COVID-19-specific stressors and parental psychological experiences were associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and sleep problems. Mediation analyses furthermore indicated that the association of COVID-19-specific stressors with all outcome measures was mediated by parental burn-out.
Conclusions
Parents of children with a chronic disease constitute a vulnerable group for worse well-being during the current pandemic. Findings suggest interventions directly targeting parental burn-out are warranted.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people across the world, with important heterogeneity among older adults in how they respond to the challenges associated with this crisis. Relying on a ...cross-fertilization between Erikson’s personality theory and self-determination theory, this study aimed to examine possible sources of resilience (i.e., ego integrity and need satisfaction) and vulnerability (i.e., despair) in older adults’ (mal) adjustment, thereby additionally considering the role of multiple risk and protective factors (e.g., gender and marital status). During the second month of the lockdown period in Belgium, 693 older adults (
M
age
= 70.06,
SD
= 4.48, range: 65–89 years, 62.1% female) filled out online questionnaires concerning the study variables, while also completing assessments of several important sociodemographic factors. Structural equation modeling suggested that both ego integrity and despair related to indicators of well-being and psychological distress through experienced need satisfaction. Additionally, we found several factors to protect (e.g., higher perceived income) or diminish (e.g., being widowed) older adults’ well-being during these challenging times, with little evidence for a moderating role of these factors in associations between the psychological variables. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
In spite of the safety and efficiency of the COVID‐19 vaccines and the many promotion efforts of political and expert authorities, a fair portion of the population remained hesitant if not opposed to ...vaccination. Public debate and the available literature point to the possible role of people's attitudes towards medical institutions as well as their preference for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) on their motivations and intentions to be vaccinated. Other potential ideological factors are beliefs about environmental laissez‐faire and divine providence insofar as they encourage people to let the pandemic unfold without human interference. In three cross‐sectional samples (total N = 8214), collected at successive moments during the Belgian vaccination campaign, the present research examines the distal role of these psychological and ideological factors on vaccination intentions via motivational processes. Study 1 gauges the relation between trust in medical institutions and preference for CAM on intentions to get vaccinated via motivations. Study 2 examined the role of beliefs in the desirability of letting nature take its course (‘environmental laissez‐faire beliefs’) on vaccination intention via motivations. Study 3 tests whether people's adherence to environmental laissez‐faire and beliefs about divine providence are linked to their motivations for vaccination via trust in the medical institutions and CAM. Results show that adherence to CAM has a deleterious effect on vaccination intentions, whereas trust in medical institutions has a positive effect. Both ideological factors pertaining to external control are only moderately related, with environmental laissez‐faire beliefs having stronger effects on CAM, medical trust and vaccination motivations. We discuss the importance of this set of results in light of the growing interest in CAM and the increasing presence of messages appealing to the environment.
The COVID‐19 pandemic elicited a lot of concerns among citizens, thereby potentially compromising their well‐being. This study sought to examine the role of individuals' emotion regulation styles ...(i.e., emotional dysregulation, emotional suppression, and emotional integration) in handling these concerns and their experiences of well‐being (i.e., satisfaction with life and sleep quality) and ill‐being (i.e., anxiety and depressive symptoms). The study had a unique 10‐wave longitudinal design (N = 986; Mage = 41.28; 76% female) and was conducted during the outbreak of the pandemic in March–May 2020. Multilevel analyses showed, first, that weekly variation in COVID‐19 related concerns related negatively to weekly variation in well‐being and positively to weekly variation in ill‐being. Second, at the between‐person level, emotional dysregulation and suppression related positively to between‐person vulnerability in ill‐being and lower well‐being (across all waves). Third, between‐person differences in emotional dysregulation amplified the strength of the within‐person association between concerns and depressive complaints and lowered life satisfaction. Unexpectedly, integrative emotion regulation amplified the strength of the within‐person association between concerns and anxiety. The discussion focuses on the critical role of emotion regulation in handling the uncertainty elicited by the pandemic and provides directions for further research.
The transmissibility of new COVID-19 variants and decreasing efficacy of vaccines led authorities to recommend a booster and even an annual dose. However, people's willingness to accept new doses ...varied considerably. Using two independent longitudinal samples of 4596 (Mean age = 53.6) and 514 (Mean age = 55.9) vaccinated participants, we examined how people's (lack of) vaccination motivation for their first dose was associated with their intention to get a booster (Sample 1) and an annual dose (Sample 2) several months later (Aim 1). We also aimed to capture the impact of the motivational heterogeneity on these intentions by capitalizing on participants' different motivational profiles collected at baseline (Aim 2). Across both samples, autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and distrust-based amotivation were uniquely related to, respectively, higher, lower, and even lower booster and annual dose intentions. Further, a two-step clustering procedure revealed five profiles, with the profiles characterized by higher autonomous motivation (i.e. Good Quality and High Quantity profiles) reporting the highest vaccination intentions and the profile characterized by the highest number of obstacles (i.e. Global Amotivated profile) yielding the lowest vaccination intentions. These results stress the critical need to support citizens' volitional endorsement of vaccination to harvest long-term benefits with respect to COVID-19.
The essential role of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in well‐being has been demonstrated convincingly. Yet whether their fulfillment also serves as a source of ...resilience in the face of adversity has received limited attention. A longitudinal sample of Belgian citizens (N = 1869; Mage = 56.23, 68% female) completed an online questionnaire on 13 occasions between April 2020 and April 2022 during the COVID‐19 crisis. Multilevel analyses showed that need fulfillment, both at the between‐ and within‐person level, related negatively to concerns, even after controlling for exposure to personal risks. Further, the association between concerns and changes in symptoms of depression and anxiety was dampened when people reported higher need fulfillment compared with others (i.e. between‐person level) or when they reported periodically more need fulfillment than usual (i.e. within‐person level). This moderation effect occurred on top of the systematic negative main effect of need fulfillment on symptoms of anxiety and depression. Psychological need fulfillment serves as a resilience factor (a) by reducing concerns in the face of adverse events (i.e. an appraisal effect) and (b) by mobilizing resources that help individuals to deal better with concerns (i.e. a coping effect). Theoretical and practical implications of the resilience effect of need fulfillment are discussed.
Although the COVID-19 crisis is a distressing situation entailing greater boredom and lower life satisfaction, there is considerably heterogeneity in people's reaction patterns. In a sample of 1455 ...participants (Mage = 50.70, 70% female), collected during the second lockdown in Belgium, we sought to examine an integrative process model, thereby distinguishing between an awareness- (i.e., decentering vs. ruminating) and an action-oriented (i.e., self-motivating strategies vs. lack of strategies) pathway to account for the association between dispositional mindfulness and participants' psychological functioning. In conjunction, both pathways were found to, respectively, partial and full account for the association between mindfulness and boredom and life satisfaction. The findings highlight, first, the importance of taking an observing stance towards negative experiences instead of being directly immersed in them. Second, congruent with the Self-Determination Theory, they suggest that not all self-motivating action strategies can be considered equal, as autonomy- and control-oriented self-motivating strategies to handle boredom episodes were differentiated related to boredom and life satisfaction.
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