RESILIENT COPING AND FEAR OF MISSING OUT IN TIMES OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A PILOT STUDY ABOUT THE MODERATING ROLE OF EMOTIONAL REGULATION

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic period has had a strong impact on people's lives, it has been associated with problematic phenomena, including FoMO (Fear of Missing Out). This fear has been related to numerous psychological problems, both internalizing and externalizing. However, to date, few studies have focused on variables that can play a protective role to deal with this fear. The objective of the present study was to explore the protective role that Resilient Coping and Emotional Regulation could play as personal resources against FoMO. A sample of 146 young adults, aged between 18 and 25 years (74% women), completed different questionnaires regarding resilient coping (BRS), emotional regulation (WLEIS-S) and fear of missing out (FoMO). Correlation analysis was carried out among the variables, as well as a moderation analysis using the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018). The results indicated significant associations between the variables in the expected direction. In addition, Emotional Regulation moderated the main effect of Resilient Coping on FoMO. These findings suggest the potential benefits of training and developing both personal resources to protect against negative emotions such as FoMO.