Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic

Background The COVID-19 pandemic is a type of stressful event which might have an impact on psychological state. A prolonged threat of getting a serious, contagious illness is expected to be associated with an increase of negative emotions and, conversely, with a decrease of positive emotions. As th...

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Main Authors: Aleksandra Modzelewska, Kamil K. Imbir
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: PeerJ Inc. 2021-12-01
Series:PeerJ
Subjects:
Online Access:https://peerj.com/articles/12542.pdf
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author Aleksandra Modzelewska
Kamil K. Imbir
author_facet Aleksandra Modzelewska
Kamil K. Imbir
author_sort Aleksandra Modzelewska
collection DOAJ
description Background The COVID-19 pandemic is a type of stressful event which might have an impact on psychological state. A prolonged threat of getting a serious, contagious illness is expected to be associated with an increase of negative emotions and, conversely, with a decrease of positive emotions. As the stressor is strongly linked to health and the body, we decided to investigate what types of factors related to body perception and appraisal are associated with different types of reported emotions. The purpose of the study was to verify the associations between three types of variables: interoceptive awareness as described by Mehling and colleagues (2012a, 2018), negative beliefs about health and body, and different types of emotions. Methodology A Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire was applied to evaluate interoceptive awareness. The declared emotional state was diagnosed with a list of 20 emotions–divided by valence and origin. Additionally, a list of 10 negative beliefs about health and body was used. The study was held in a correlational schema with 299 subjects recruited via the social media platform Facebook who took part in an online survey. Results The study revealed that the scales of Self-Regulation and Trusting are primarily associated with negative automatic and reflective emotions and positive automatic emotions. Furthermore, the Self-Regulation, Trusting dimensions of interoceptive awareness predict an intensity of emotions categorised on the basis of valence and origin. In addition, negative beliefs about health and the body provided an adequate explanation of the variance of most of the types of emotions experienced during the pandemic. Conclusions Factors related to body perception, such as interoceptive awareness and negative beliefs about health and body provide a significant contribution to explaining emotional state at the beginning of the pandemic.
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spelling doaj.art-a11352f717a8402f80111ab0da537f592023-12-03T11:02:19ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592021-12-019e1254210.7717/peerj.12542Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemicAleksandra ModzelewskaKamil K. ImbirBackground The COVID-19 pandemic is a type of stressful event which might have an impact on psychological state. A prolonged threat of getting a serious, contagious illness is expected to be associated with an increase of negative emotions and, conversely, with a decrease of positive emotions. As the stressor is strongly linked to health and the body, we decided to investigate what types of factors related to body perception and appraisal are associated with different types of reported emotions. The purpose of the study was to verify the associations between three types of variables: interoceptive awareness as described by Mehling and colleagues (2012a, 2018), negative beliefs about health and body, and different types of emotions. Methodology A Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire was applied to evaluate interoceptive awareness. The declared emotional state was diagnosed with a list of 20 emotions–divided by valence and origin. Additionally, a list of 10 negative beliefs about health and body was used. The study was held in a correlational schema with 299 subjects recruited via the social media platform Facebook who took part in an online survey. Results The study revealed that the scales of Self-Regulation and Trusting are primarily associated with negative automatic and reflective emotions and positive automatic emotions. Furthermore, the Self-Regulation, Trusting dimensions of interoceptive awareness predict an intensity of emotions categorised on the basis of valence and origin. In addition, negative beliefs about health and the body provided an adequate explanation of the variance of most of the types of emotions experienced during the pandemic. Conclusions Factors related to body perception, such as interoceptive awareness and negative beliefs about health and body provide a significant contribution to explaining emotional state at the beginning of the pandemic.https://peerj.com/articles/12542.pdfInteroceptive awarenessHealth beliefsBody beliefsEmotions originEmotions valence
spellingShingle Aleksandra Modzelewska
Kamil K. Imbir
Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic
PeerJ
Interoceptive awareness
Health beliefs
Body beliefs
Emotions origin
Emotions valence
title Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic
title_full Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic
title_fullStr Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic
title_short Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic
title_sort interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic
topic Interoceptive awareness
Health beliefs
Body beliefs
Emotions origin
Emotions valence
url https://peerj.com/articles/12542.pdf
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