The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. Although increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes, as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. To gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (22 March to 19 April) in a convenience sample of N = 15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p < 0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p < 0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics.

Center for Contextual Psychiatry Department of Neurosciences KU Leuven Leuven Belgium

Center for Psychiatric Disorders Research University in Bratislava Science Park Comenius Bratislava Slovak Republic

Center for Psychiatry Research Department of Women's and Children's Health Karolinska Institutet Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm Health Care Services Region Stockholm Stockholm Sweden

Center for Studies and Research in Cognitive Neuroscience Department of Psychology University of Bologna Bologna Italy

Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience and MINDLab Department of Clinical Medicine Århus University Århus Denmark

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Stockholm Health Care Services Region Stockholm Stockholm Sweden

Clinical Psychology Unit for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences University of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

College of Inter faculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland

Concentris Research Management GmbH Fürstenfeldbruck Germany

Curtin Autism Research Group School of Occupational Therapy Social Work and Speech Pathology Curtin University Perth WA Australia

Department of Cognitive Science Budapest University of Technology and Economics Budapest Hungary

Department of Counselling and Psychology Hong Kong Shue Yan University Hong Kong Hong Kong

Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology Ghent University Gent Belgium

Department of Experimental Psychology University of Oxford Oxford UK

Department of International Business Tunghai University Taichung City Taiwan

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center Mainz Germany

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Semmelweis University Budapest Hungary

Department of Psychiatry Faculty of Medicine Comenius University in Bratislava Bratislava Slovak Republic

Department of Psychiatry Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy University Hospital Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main Germany

Department of Psychiatry Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Psychiatric University Hospital University of Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Department of Psychiatry University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Department of Psychological Methods University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands

Department of Psychology Faculty of Arts Comenius University in Bratislava Bratislava Slovak Republic

Department of Psychology University of Oslo Oslo Norway

Division of Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy Department of Psychology University of Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour Radboud University Medical Center Nijmegen The Netherlands

Faculty of Business and Technologies at Utena University of Applied Sciences Utena Lithuania

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Zagreb Zagreb Croatia

Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics University of Freiburg Freiburg Germany

Faculty of Medicine Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv Israel

Faculty of Philosophy Berlin School of Mind and Brain Humboldt Universität zu Berlin Berlin Germany

Faculty of Psychology University of Economics and Human Sciences Warsaw Warsaw Poland

Faculty of Psychology University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland

Faculty of Social Services and Health Care LAB University of Applied Sciences Lahti Finland

Faculty of Social Studies Department of Psychology Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Freiburg Center for Data Analysis and Modelling University of Freiburg Freiburg Germany

Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod Lyon France

Institute of Psychology Goethe University Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main Germany

Institute of Psychology University of Tartu Tartu Estonia

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Mainz Germany

Laboratory for Behavioral Neurology and Imaging of Cognition Department of Neuroscience Medical School University of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

Laboratory for Experimental Psychology Department of Psychology University of Belgrade Belgrade Serbia

Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research Mainz Germany

Leuven Research and Development Spin off and Innovation Unit KU Leuven Leuven Belgium

MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Neuroimaging Center Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center Mainz Germany

PROMENTA Research Centre Department of Psychology University of Oslo Oslo Norway

Research Division of Mind and Brain Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy CCM Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and Berlin Institute of Health Berlin Germany

Research Group Social Stress and Family Health Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences Leipzig Germany

Sagol School of Neuroscience Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv Israel

School of Psychological Science Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv Israel

Sleep Research Unit 1st Department of Psychiatry National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Athens Greece

Swiss Center for Affective Sciences University of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center Sagol Brain Institute Tel Aviv Tel Aviv Israel

University of Bergamo Bergamo Italy

University of Tehran Tehran Iran

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A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic