Coping psychologically with social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic: Women’s accounts on Instagram
Keywords:
coping, social distancing, COVID-19, Instagram, reflexive thematic analysisAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting need for social distancing have spawned psychological challenges to people across the world. During this time of global crisis, women have been found to be more vulnerable to the negative psychological impact of the pandemic than men. This research explores how coping with social distancing is represented on Instagram by women. Data were collected using Instagram search function with the hashtags relevant to coping with social distancing. A total of 320 posts, including both texts and images, posted by female users between March and August 2020, were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. The findings of this study demonstrate the women’s coping efforts to regulate negative emotions and generate positive emotions during social distancing. Such coping efforts include seeking social interactions, spending good times with close others, connecting with nature, finding pleasure at home, and regulating emotions. These findings suggest that therapeutic interventions that target flourishing through suffering may have the potential to promote psychological well-being and adaptive coping in times of anxiety and isolation, such as this pandemic.
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