First-Year Undergraduates: Negative Thinking, Mindful Nonjudging, and Resources Differentially, Partially Accounted for the Dispositional Threat Appraisal – Anxiety Symptom Severity Relationship Pre and Post COVID-19 Pandemic Versus Generational Status.


Presenter: Leticia Lopes Oliveira

Group Members: Chloe Sage Botelho, Sydney D. Gagne

Faculty Sponsor: Champika Soysa

School: Worcester State University

Research Area: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

Session: Poster Session 2, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM, 163, C12

ABSTRACT

Cognitive theories have established a relationship between person-environment interactions and emotional states (Turner, 2022). In the COVID-19 Pandemic environment, mental distress in college-aged individuals was higher than in the general adult population (Jia et al., 2021). The interrelationships between dispositional threat appraisal, perseverative negative thinking (PNT), mindful nonjudging (MNJ), and the perception of available resources have not been examined together in relation to anxiety symptom severity either using the COVID-19 Pandemic as a point of reference or by comparing these patterns in first (FGCS) and continuing generation (CGCS) college students. Advancing the literature, we examined PNT, MNJ, and available resources as concurrent mechanisms that could account for the relationship between dispositional threat appraisal and anxiety symptom severity in 477 U.S. first-year undergraduates (Pre-COVID N=49% and First Gen=42%), three years before the COVID-19 Pandemic and four years after it, as well as in FGCS and CGCS. Data were collected in-person. PNT and available resources significantly, partially accounted for the dispositional threat appraisal - anxiety symptom severity relationship in both FGCS and CGCS, but only PNT significantly, partially accounted for the preceding relationship in FGCS and CGCS.  Our hypotheses were partially supported. There was no significant difference in these effects either pre and post covid or between FGCS and CGCS. In both instances, dispositional threat appraisal had a significant, direct effect on anxiety symptom severity. These findings suggested that targeted interventions could decrease anxiety symptom severity in the context of dispositional threat perception, in different populations of college students.