Positive Humor/Affection and Age Advantages in Affective Responses During the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of people worldwide. However, even in times of prolonged exposure to extreme and new realities such as this pandemic, people are also able to experience positive emotions. To understand how people's emotional responses have changed over the course of the pandemic and what helps people to be positively engaged in perceiving negative situations as an opportunity to experience positive emotions, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal study in Spain. A total of 396 participants (M_age = 40.11, <i>SD</i> 12.66, 74% women) completed three waves of a web-based survey during the lockdown. Descriptive and correlational analyses, a repeated measures General Lineal Model, and 4 mixed effects models with a random effect on individuals were conducted to test hypotheses. Growth models revealed that positive and negative affect increased over time. Older people show more positive and less negative affectivity. Positive humor and affection coping strategies bolster positive emotions and buffer negative emotions over time in older participants. Older people who use more positive humor and affection experienced more positive emotions and decreased their levels of negative emotions over time. The different trajectories in positive and negative affect suggest age benefits in emotional regulation and a positive effect in older ages during the lockdown. Positive psychological interventions that boost a person's coping repertoire by helping them increase the experience of positive emotions may hold great promise aiding people to bolster their mental health in highly stressful and unexpected future crises.