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Cited by 19Employment and Welfare StudiesCOVID-19 and Mental HealthWorkplace Health and Well-being

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How and when can job-insecure employees prevent psychological distress against the COVID-19 pandemic? The role of cognitive appraisal and reappraisal

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Wang, Dan, Cao, Dongmei, Kiani, Ataullah·2024·Current Psychology
DOI 10.1007/s12144-023-04331-8PMC PMC9904252
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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected economies around the world, causing record unemployment rates that have exacerbated the already prevalent job insecurity, thereby leading to psychological distress among many individuals. The present study aims to reveal the underlying mechanisms of psychological distress induced by the COVID-19 pandemic among job-insecure employees and to identify one of the emotion regulation strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal) as a protective factor that mitigates psychological distress. Drawing upon transactional theory, we proposed and tested a moderated mediation model, wherein cognitive reappraisal serves as a moderator of the direct and indirect relationship between job insecurity and psychological distress via stress appraisals (i.e., threat appraisal and challenge appraisal) based on data from 922 employees. Results show that threat appraisal and challenge appraisal positively and negatively mediate the relationship between job insecurity and psychological distress, respectively. Furthermore, as an emotion regulation strategy, cognitive reappraisal mitigates psychological distress among job-insecure employees, weakens the positive indirect effect of threat appraisal, but intensifies the negative indirect effect of challenge appraisal. Our findings suggest that cognition plays an important role in individuals' emotional reactions to COVID-19-related stress, and cognition reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy in mitigating psychological distress. Therefore, cognition reappraisal skills should be improved to reduce psychological distress induced by COVID-19 pandemic.

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Metadata

Authors
Wang, D., Cao, D., & Kiani, A.
Affiliations
  • University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
  • Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (CN)
  • Tsinghua University (CN)
Corresponding author
Cao, Dongmei
ORCID
Venue
Current Psychology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2023-02-07
Volume
43
Issue
13
Pages
12248-12260
ISSN
  • 1046-1310 (ISSN-L)
  • 1936-4733
DOI
10.1007/s12144-023-04331-8
PMC
PMC9904252
OpenAlex
W4319340384
Cited by
19
References
5
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3
FWCI
6.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Current Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Employment and Welfare Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Workplace Health and Well-being
Keywords
job insecurity, psychological distress, COVID-19 pandemic, cognitive reappraisal, emotion regulation, threat appraisal, challenge appraisal, stress appraisal, transactional theory, unemployment, workers

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