Buffering Academic Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic Related Social Isolation: Grit and Growth Mindset as Protective F
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Buffering Academic Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic Related Social Isolation: Grit and Growth Mindset as Protective Factors against the Impact of Loneliness Magdalena Mosanya 1,2 Accepted: 25 September 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The pandemic of the SARS CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19 sickness, constitutes a global challenge to well-being. Positive psychology constructs of grit and growth mindset may offer a solution to this challenge as both are associated with psychological resilience. A growth mindset describes the underlying beliefs people have about the malleability of intelligence, and grit refers to dedication to long-term goals. The present study explored whether such constructs could constitute protective factors against the academic stress associated with loneliness and perceived lack of control among international students (n = 170) during social isolation, induced by COVID-19 restrictions. The results of a hierarchical multiple regression model explained 36% of the variance in academic stress with a perceived lack of control (ß = .53, p < .001) and growth mindset (ß = −.22, p < .001) being significant direct predictors. Moderation analysis explained 17% of the variance and confirmed that a level of dispositional grit moderated the detrimental influence loneliness had on academic stress. Simple slopes analysis revealed a significant effect for moderate (β = .07, p = .01) and high (β = .16, p = .001) levels of grit. Our findings suggest that grit and growth mindset, as dynamic variables, could be taught to students as resilience-building prevention of academic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, our results have shown that parents (37%) and friends (32%) were most frequently identified by students as supporters during the COVID-19 pandemic with minimal reported support from universities (2.5%). Keywords Growth mindset . Grit . Loneliness . Academic stress . COVID-19
By the end of 2019, COVID-19 began to spread around the world (Wu et al. 2020). Although most people infected did not experience severe symptoms, vulnerable * Magdalena Mosanya [email protected]; [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology
individuals, the elderly, or with underlying medical conditions might develop a serious and life-threatening symptoms (World Health Organization (WHO) 2020). By March 11th, 2020, the WHO had declared COVID-19 spread a global pandemic and advised governments around the world to implement measures and restrictions to prevent its further spread. As the first preventive measures, virus screening and quarantine were implemented, as treatments or vaccines remained unavailable (Wu et al. 2020). Instead, physical distancing procedures were employed, as such efforts proved useful in tackling previous outbreaks of the SARS-1 in 2003 (Ferguson et al. (2006). Ferguson et al.As the number of cases rapidly increased globally and measures were enacted to isolate people
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