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New measure of defensive and constructive optimism towards COVID-19 pandemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

T. Gordeeva  and
O. Sychev
T. Gordeeva*
Affiliation:
Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation
O. Sychev
Affiliation:
Research Department, Shukshin Altai State University for Humanities and Pedagogy, Moscow, Russian Federation Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics and Department of Psychology Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Individuals’ beliefs about COVID-19 pandemic may affect their health-related behavior including self-isolation. “Positive” beliefs may be realistic (constructive belief that efforts help to prevent infection and spread of the virus) or rose-colored glasses (defensive belief that coronavirus problem is exaggerated aimed to cope with anxiety) with different consequences for behavior and mental health.

Objectives

Objectives: The aim was to develop the scales of defensive and constructive optimism towards COVID-19 pandemic (DCO-Covid) and analyze their psychometric properties, factor structure using CFA, internal consistency and validity.

Methods

The sample comprised 1403 university students (68% women, M=20.59, SD=3.66) from large cities of Russia. Online survey conducted from 10/4/2020 till 25/4/2020. Test battery included the scales of constructive and defensive optimism (each of 3 items) and measure of dispositional optimism (LOT-R, Scheier et al., 1994). Part of the sample (N=306) completed anxiety in a pandemic questionnaire (Tkhostov, Rasskazova, 2020).

Results

CFA indicated a good fit for the two-factor model (χ2=27.11, df=8, p<.001, CFI =.985, TLI=.971, RMSEA = .041, p[RMSEA≤.05] = .78) with negative correlations between factors (–.28). Cronbach’s alpha for defensive optimism and constructive optimism were α=.75 and α=.70 respectively. As expected constructive and defensive optimism correlated with dispositional optimism (r=.24; p < .001 and r=–.06; p<.05 respectively) and anxiety (fear of infection, r=.08; n.s and r= –.23; p < .001).

Conclusions

The results show that DCO-C is a reliable measure of defensive and constructive optimism towards COVID-19 pandemic. The construct validity of these scales is confirmed by CFA and obtained correlations.

Keywords

constructive optimismquestionnaireCOVID-19 pandemicDefensive optimism
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 64 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 29th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2021 , pp. S283
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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