Emotion networks across self-reported depression levels during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

During stressful circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, disturbances in emotional experiences can occur. These emotional disturbances, if not relieved or regulated, can be associated with feelings of depression. Currently, little is known about which emotional experiences (positive and negative) are associated with feelings of depression during COVID-19. This study aimed to estimate and compare mixed, positive and negative valence emotion networks during COVID-19 for low, moderate and high levels of self-reported depression. Across 26,034 participants, central emotional experiences included gratitude, sadness, fear, anxiety, compassion, and being moved for all self-reported depression levels; love for low levels of depression, and confusion for high levels of depression. The strongest edges included fear-anxiety, loneliness-boredom, anger-disgust, determination-hope, and compassion-being moved for all self-reported depression levels; calm-relief, and sadness-frustration for high levels of self-reported depression; and admiration-being moved for low and moderate self-reported depression levels. Network comparison tests showed mixed, positive and negative emotion networks significantly differed in structure across all self-reported depression levels. Network connectivity was also significantly stronger for low self-reported depression within positive and negative emotion networks. These networks provide key information on emotional experiences associated with depression during COVID-19.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• depression
• COVID-19
• sustained stress
• network analysis

Acknowledgements

We express our great appreciation and thanks to the principal investigators (Dr Rui Sun and Dr Disa Sauter, University of Amsterdam) and collaborators involved in the “Psychological Wellbeing During the Global COVID-19 Outbreak” study for collecting and making this large database available.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the studies.

Data availability

Data supporting these findings will be openly available at OSF once the primary study “Psychological Wellbeing During the Global COVID-19 Outbreak” (Sun et al., 2020) is published.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Aoife Whiston, supervised by Dr Eric R. Igou, has received funding from the Irish Research Council and Analog Devices International [grant no: EPSPG/2020/487] to conduct research on identifying indicators of depression relapse versus recovery while facing stress through vital-signs monitoring.