Studies conducted in other countries during the early stages of the pandemic confirmed a quick rise in feelings of stress and anxiety among the general population, both in places seriously affected by the virus and in those where the disease was not such a serious problem. This was a time when there was a dynamic rise in the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19, from 2055 diagnosed subjects on 30 March to 12,640 diagnosed subjects on 29 April. Our study was conducted in Poland, between 30 March and 29 April, 2020. Our findings may be a valuable cue for coping with crisis situations. However, there was an effect of positive emotions (both automatic and reflective) having a protective role from the feeling of general anxiety, which was significant for the older group only. We created models accounting for the variance of general anxiety, finding significant predictors for both separate groups of younger and older adults (negative emotions, both automatic and reflective and preventive behaviours). Unrealistic optimism was also positively correlated with negative automatic emotions and negatively correlated with positive reflective emotions. The results allowed us to confirm the occurrence of unrealistic optimism bias (being significantly stronger for men than women), which correlated negatively with the declared number of preventive behaviours. We also measured twelve specific emotions (differing in valence and origin) and the feeling of the anxiety caused by the coronavirus.

In our study, we explored unrealistic optimism bias (the cognitive error giving people a feeling of invulnerability) and any declared preventive behaviours undertaken in order to minimise the risk of contagion.

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic (and its consequences, such as lockdown and public health regimes) was a novel and stressful situation for most of people, and, as such, it significantly affected both cognitive and emotional functioning of individuals.

Social psychology unrealistic optimism