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Objective: During the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented collective stressors disrupted assumptions of safety and security. Cognitive strategies like finding benefits during adversity may facilitate coping during such times of social disruption by reducing distress or motivating health protective behaviors. Methods: We explored relationships between benefit finding, collective- and individual-level adversity exposure, psychological distress, and health protective behaviors using four waves of data collected during the COVID-19 era from a longitudinal sample from the NORC AmeriSpeak panel, a representative, probability-based online panel of U.S. residents: Wave 1 (N=6,514, 3/18/2020-4/18/2020, 58.5% completion rate); Wave 2 (N=5,661, 9/24/2020-10/16/2020, 87.1% completion rate); Wave 3 (N=4,881, 11/8/2021-11/24/2021, 75.3% completion rate); and Wave 4 (N=4,859, 5/19/2022-6/16/2022, 75.1% completion rate). Results: Benefit finding was common; k-means clustering (an exploratory, data-driven approach) yielded five trajectories: Always High (15.92%), Always Low (18.13%), Always Middle (29.81%), Increasing (16.84%) and Decreasing (19.30%). Benefit finding trajectories were generally not strong correlates of emotional exhaustion, traumatic stress symptoms, global distress, and functional impairment over time. Rather, benefit finding robustly correlated with health protective behaviors relevant to COVID-19 and another viral threat (the seasonal flu): adjusting for demographics, pre-pandemic mental health, and collective- and individual-level adversity, benefit finding was positively associated with more social distancing (β=0.28, p<.001) and mask wearing (β=.21, p<.001) at Wave 2 and greater COVID-19 (OR=1.37, p<.001) and flu (OR=1.18, p<.001) vaccination at Wave 3. Conclusions: Although benefit finding was not generally associated with lower psychological distress during a collective stressor, it correlated with engagement in stressor-related health protective behaviors. Public significance statement: Finding benefits or “silver linings” during collective stress may not be associated with reduced psychological distress. However, finding benefits may promote cognitive coping strategies that encourage health protective behaviors. 

Abstract Understanding the motivation to adopt personal household adaptation behaviors in the face of climate change-related hazards is essential for developing and implementing behaviorally realistic interventions that promote well-being and health. Escalating extreme weather events increase the number of those directly exposed and adversely impacted by climate change. But do people attribute these negative events to climate change? Such subjective attribution may be a cognitive process whereby the experience of negative climate-change-related events may increase risk perceptions and motivate people to act. Here we surveyed a representative sample of 1846 residents of Florida and Texas, many of whom had been repeatedly exposed to hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, facing the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. We assessed prior hurricane negative personal experiences, climate-change-related subjective attribution (for hurricanes), risk appraisal (perceived probability and severity of a hurricane threat), hurricane adaptation appraisal (perceived efficacy of adaptation measures and self-efficacy to address the threat of hurricanes), and self-reported hurricane personal household adaptation. Our findings suggest that prior hurricane negative personal experiences and subjective attribution are associated with greater hurricane risk appraisal. Hurricane subjective attribution moderated the relationship between hurricane negative personal experiences and risk appraisal; in turn, negative hurricane personal experiences, hurricane risk appraisal, and adaptation appraisal were positively associated with self-reported hurricane personal adaptation behaviors. Subjective attribution may be associated with elevated perceived risk for specific climate hazards. Communications that help people understand the link between their negative personal experiences (e.g. hurricanes) and climate change may help guide risk perceptions and motivate protective actions, particularly in areas with repeated exposure to threats. 

Understanding population‐level variability in responses to pathogens over time is important for developing effective health‐based messages targeted at ideologically diverse populations. Research from psychological and political sciences suggests that party and elite cues shape how people respond to major threats like climate change. Research on responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic suggests similar variability across party identities; however, prior work has methodological limitations. This prospective, longitudinal study of a large probability‐based nationally representative U.S. sample assessed in March–April 2020 (N = 6,514) and then 6 months later in September–October 2020 (N = 5,661) demonstrates that COVID‐19 fear, perceived COVID‐19 death risk, and reported health‐protective behaviors became increasingly polarized over the first 6 months of the pandemic. Initial differences between Democrats and Republicans failed to converge over time and became more pronounced. Responses among Republicans were further polarized by support for former President Donald Trump: Trump Republicans initially reported weaker responses to COVID‐19 than non‐Trump Republicans, and these differences became more pronounced over time. Importantly, political identity and Trump support were not linked to perceived infection risk of a nonpoliticized pathogen, the flu. Finally, political identity and Republican Trump support prospectively predicted COVID‐19 vaccine intentions 6 months into the pandemic. 

The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic is a collective stressor unfolding over time; yet, rigorous empirical studies addressing its mental health consequences among large probability-based national samples are rare. Between 18 March and 18 April 2020, as illness and death escalated in the United States, we assessed acute stress, depressive symptoms, and direct, community, and media-based exposures to COVID-19 in three consecutive representative samples from the U.S. probability-based nationally representative NORC AmeriSpeak panel across three 10-day periods (total N = 6514). Acute stress and depressive symptoms increased significantly over time as COVID-19 deaths increased across the United States. Preexisting mental and physical health diagnoses, daily COVID-19–related media exposure, conflicting COVID-19 information in media, and secondary stressors were all associated with acute stress and depressive symptoms. Results have implications for targeting public health interventions and risk communication efforts to promote community resilience as the pandemic waxes and wanes over time.