- ASA 2022 Data-Driven Decision Making
- Edited by Enrico di Bella, Luigi Fabbris, Corrado Lagazio
Repression of the future-oriented disposition of Italians by a never-ending pandemic
- Simone Di Zio
- Luigi Fabbris
- © 2023 Author(s) |
- CC BY 4.0
- DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3.47
Likely, the after-pandemic world won’t be as it used. To properly imagine and build our future, we should forget the progressive growth of past times and even the concept of “normality” of pre-pandemic years is going to change inasmuch as a new social concept is coming true ("surprise free" scenarios are no longer contemplated). The disposition of Italians towards their future was surveyed with three indicators: 1) the depression rate as measured with PHQ9, a standard psychological test for clinical depression measurement; 2) the pro-activeness orientation, as measured with an 8-item psychological test; and 3) the clearness rate of own future vision, as measured with a focused, dichotomous question. The indicators have been measured through a convenience sample on Italian adults during the second half of 2021. The analysis showed that the fear of contagion and the never-ending emergency due to Covid-19 pandemic caused such a psychological awkwardness to repress the disposition of Italians towards their possible futures. The repression was harder on youngsters, living alone persons, disrupted families, and people with psychic and/or depressive symptoms. A regressive model was furtherly fit on the collected sample. It showed multiple determinants of the future repression, say, that the fear of contagion was more relevant than the contagion itself and the uncertainty about the pandemic end was as disheartening as the contagion risk for the yearning hope of a positive after-pandemic lifestyle.
- Keywords:
- Future orientation,
- Covid-19 pandemic,
- Depression,
- Pro-activeness,
University of Chieti-Pescara G. D'Annunzio, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-9139-1451
Tolomeo studi e ricerche, Padua and Treviso, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-8657-8361
- Ajzen, I. (1991). Theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50: 179-211.
- Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change. Psychological Review, 84(2): 191–215.
- Barua, Z., Barua, S., Aktar, S., Kabir, N., Li, M. (2020), Effects of misinformation on COVID-19 individual responses and recommendations for resilience of disastrous consequences of misinformation, Progress in Disaster Science, 8: 100119.
- Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., Trexler, L. (1974). The measurement of pessimism: The Hopelessness Scale. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(6): 861–865.
- Commodari, E., La Rosa, V.L. (2020). Adolescents in quarantine during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: Perceived health risk, beliefs, psychological experiences and expectations for the future. Frontiers in Psychology, 23(11):559951. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.559951
- Connor, K.M., Davidson, R.T. (2003). Development of a new resilience scale: The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), Depression and Anxiety, 18: 76–82.
- de Terte, I., Stephens, C. (2014). Psychological resilience of workers in high-risk occupations. Stress and Health, 30(5): 353–355. DOI: 10.1002/smi.2627. ISSN 1532-3005
- Elbarazi, I., Saddik, B., Grivna, M., Aziz, F., Elsori, D., Stip, E., Bendak, E. (2022), The impact of the COVID-19 “infodemic” on well-being: A cross-sectional study, Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 15: 289-307.
- Eurofound (2021). Living, Working and COVID-19 (Update April 2021): Mental Health and Trust Decline across EU as Pandemic Enters Another Year. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
- Fishbein, M., Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading, MA.: Addison-Wesley.
- Hosmer, D.W., Lemeshow, S. (2000). Applied Logistic Regression (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
- Husman, J., Shell, D.F. (2008). Beliefs and perceptions about the future: A measurement of future time perspective. Learning and Individual Differences, 18(2): 166-175.
- Lang, F.R., Carstensen, L.L. (2002). Time counts: Future time perspective, goals and social relationships, Psychology and Aging, 17(1):125-39.
- Ling, H., Teng, S., Liu, X., Wu, J., Gu, X. (2022). Future work self salience and future time perspective as serial mediators between proactive personality and career adaptability. Frontiers in Psychology, 13: 824198. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.824198
- Mazzotti, E., Fassone, G., Picardi, A., Sagoni, E., Ramieri, L., Lega, I., Camaioni, D., Abeni, D., Pasquini, P. (2003). II Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) per lo screening dei disturbi psichiatrici: Uno studio di validazione nei confronti della Interv
- O’Neill, E., Clarke, P., Fido, D., Correa Vione, K. (2022). The role of future time perspective, body awareness, and social connectedness in the relationship between self-efficacy and resilience. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 20: 1
- Roseman, I.J. (2013). Appraisal in the emotion system: Coherence in strategies for coping. Emotion Review, 5(2): 141-149.
- Rupprecht, F.S., Martin, K., Kamin, S.T., Lang, F.R. (2022). COVID-19 and perceiving finitude: Associations with future time perspective, death anxiety, and ideal life expectancy. Psychology and Aging, 37(2), 260–271.
- Simons, J., Vansteenkiste, M., Lens, W., Lacante, M. (2004). Placing motivation and future time perspective theory in a temporal perspective. Educational Psychology Review, 16(2): 121-139.
- Spitzer, R.L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J.B. (1999). Validation and utility of a self-report version of PRIME-MD: the PHQ Primary Care study. Journal of the American Medical Association, 282(18): 1737-1744.
- Van Calster, K., Lens, W., Nuttin, J.R. (1987). Affective attitude towards the personal future: Impact on motivation in high school boys. American Journal of Psychology, 100: 1–13.
- Zimbardo, P. G., and Boyd, J. N. (1999). Putting time in perspective: a valid, reliable individual-differences metric. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77: 1271–1288.
- Xie, J., Liu, L. (2022). Identifying features of source and message that influence the retweeting of health information on social media during the COVID‑19 pandemic, BMC Public Health, 22: 805. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-022-13213-w
Chapter Information
Chapter Title
Repression of the future-oriented disposition of Italians by a never-ending pandemic
Authors
Simone Di Zio, Luigi Fabbris
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3.47
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Bibliographic Information
Book Title
ASA 2022 Data-Driven Decision Making
Book Subtitle
Book of short papers
Editors
Enrico di Bella, Luigi Fabbris, Corrado Lagazio
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press, Genova University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0106-3
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0107-0
Series Title
Proceedings e report
Series ISSN
2704-601X
Series E-ISSN
2704-5846