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- All Subjects: psychology
- All Subjects: COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated alarming increases in psychological distress and alcohol use behaviors and has caused the greatest increases in depression and anxiety symptoms among college students. Prior studies have examined the impact of COVID-19 broadly on mental health and alcohol use outcomes; however, few studies have examined these impacts in college students. Previous studies have examined individual factors that could moderate the relation between COVID-19 related stressors and mental health and alcohol use outcomes, but knowledge is lacking regarding the role of emotion regulation. The present study aimed to examine the role of emotion regulation in the relation between both COVID-19 stressful experiences and COVID-19 related worry and mental health and alcohol use outcomes, and to explore racial/ethnic differences in their associations. Four hierarchical multiple regression models were conducted to assess main effects of COVID-19 stressors and emotion regulation, as well as moderation of the effect of emotion regulation on depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, alcohol consumption, and alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms during the past year. COVID-19 related worry was associated with greater symptoms of both mental health outcomes, whereas COVID-19 related stressful experiences were associated with both mental health outcomes, more alcohol consumption, and more AUD symptoms. Difficulties in emotion regulation had significant main effects on mental health outcomes and AUD symptoms, but not alcohol consumption. Hispanic/Latinx students reported higher experiences of both COVID-19 related stressors, but consumed less alcohol than did White/European students. This study provides further insight into the nature of COVID-19 related stressors and their subsequent impacts. Implications for prevention and intervention on college campuses are discussed.
Many studies indicate a positive relationship between fundamentalism and sexual and racial prejudice. Many of these studies use the Religious Fundamentalism Scale (RFS), the Attitudes Towards Homosexuals Scale (ATHS) and the Manitoba Scale. However, there appears to be overlap between RFS and both ATHS and the Manitoba Scale, unaddressed by the literature. This study looked at possible overlaps between RFS and ATHS and between RFS and the Manitoba Scale that could inflate the correlation statistic of fundamentalism and sexual and racial prejudice. The Intratextual Fundamentalism Scale (IFS), a study without authoritarian or apparent prejudice-overlapping items, was also tested for overlap. Results showed two-factor structures—namely fundamentalism and prejudice—with only two items loading to the opposite factor. However, there were many near-zero item loadings. The discussion suggests ways to change these items to increase factor loadings and to change overall measures construct validity. The correlations between fundamentalism and sexual prejudice were not significant before modifying the measures and were small and negative after modifying (modifying measures means removing all crossloaded and near-zero loaded items). The modified fundamentalism and sexual prejudice measures correlations do not follow the literature. This may be due to the sample including sexual orientation minorities and a majority of atheist, agnostic, or ‘nothing in particular’ affiliations. The correlations between fundamentalism and racial prejudice were medium and positive before modifying and were small and positive after modifying. This falls in line with the literature of small and medium positive correlation statistics.