The Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy: The Moderating Role of Gender and Emotion Regulation

Many researchers have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic hit women harder than men. This study set out to test that idea. It looked at whether women experienced more pandemic-related distress and mental health symptoms than men during Italy’s first national lockdown.

The researchers also wanted to know whether the way people manage their emotions made a difference. They looked at two strategies: cognitive reappraisal (rethinking a situation in a more positive light), which tends to protect mental health, and expressive suppression (hiding or bottling up emotions), which tends to be a risk factor. They expected these strategies to affect women and men differently.

An online survey was completed by 1,519 people during Italy’s first lockdown.

The results matched what the researchers expected. Women reported higher levels of COVID-19 distress and more mental health symptoms than men. But there was an important twist: women who used reappraisal more often reported less distress and fewer symptoms. In other words, the ability to reframe stressful situations seemed to act as a buffer.

Suppression, on the other hand, was linked to more mental health symptoms overall. This effect was similar for both men and women, not stronger for one group.

These findings offer a clear takeaway for policymakers: supporting women’s mental health during major crises — and beyond — may be especially effective if it includes teaching or encouraging strategies like cognitive reappraisal.

Abstract

Many researchers suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic may have more negative effects on women than men. Accordingly, we hypothesized that women would experience greater COVID-19 related distress and more psychopathological symptoms than men during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. Moreover, we expected emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, as protective and risk factors respectively) to interact with gender in shaping psychological health. We administered an online questionnaire to 1519 participants during the first national COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. As predicted, women reported greater COVID-19 related distress and more psychopathological symptoms than men. Furthermore, women who made greater use of reappraisal reported lower levels of distress and fewer psychopathological symptoms. Suppression was associated with more psychopathological symptoms, but there were no interaction effects with gender. Our findings have implications for policymakers wishing to sustain women’s health during stressful situations such as the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond.