Emotional, Psychological, and Cognitive Changes Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy: Is There an Advantage of Being an Older Adult?

Abstract

Introduction: The study examined age-related differences between young and older adults’ emotional and psychological experience as well as cognitive functioning throughout different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.
Materials and Methods: Participants were interviewed by phone when confined at home during the national lockdown (T1-May 2020; N = 138 young adults; N = 119 older adults) and after the first wave of contagions, when restrictions were discarded (T2-September 2020; N = 52 young adults; N = 59 older adults). A sub-sample also participated in a third assessment (T3-December 2020). Participants completed questionnaires assessing their emotional and psychological functioning (i.e., positive and negative affect, perceived social and emotional loneliness, resilience) along with memory tasks (Backward Digit Span task and words list recall).
Results: Although individuals reported less positive and more negative emotions during the lockdown than at T2, results showed that older adults displayed overall fewer negative emotions and greater resilience than young adults. The latter were those who reported feeling more emotionally lonely when compared to their older counterpart during the lockdown than afterward. Older adults’ advantage in emotional and psychological functioning was also confirmed 7 months after the national lockdown. Only age-related differences in favor of young adults for the memory tasks were found. The measures of interest were also susceptible to mood and/or concerns of COVID-19 effects.
Discussion: These findings further highlight the age-related advantage of older adults managing the emotional and psychological experience even when facing an unexpected, prolonged, and unpredictable, stressful life event such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Full text

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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT
published: 10 September 2021
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.712369
Edited by:
Yang Jiang,
University of Kentucky, United States
Reviewed by:
Massimiliano Palmiero,
University of Bergamo, Italy
Yaakov Shmuel Gershon Hoffman,
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Mirco Fasolo,
University “G. d’Annunzio”
Chieti-Pescara, Italy
*Correspondence:
Elena Carbone
elena.carbone@unipd.it
Erika Borella
erika.borella@unipd.it
Received: 20 May 2021
Accepted: 23 August 2021
Published: 10 September 2021
Citation:
Carbone E, Palumbo R, Sella E,
Lenti G, Di Domenico A and Borella E
(2021) Emotional, Psychological,
and Cognitive Changes Throughout
the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy: Is
There an Advantage of Being an
Older Adult?
Front. Aging Neurosci. 13:712369.
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.712369
Emotional, Psychological, and
Cognitive Changes Throughout the
COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy: Is There
an Advantage of Being an Older
Adult?
Elena Carbone1*, Rocco Palumbo2, Enrico Sella1, Graziana Lenti1, Alberto Di Domenico2
and Erika Borella1*
1Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padua, Italy, 2Department of Psychological, Health and Territorial
Sciences, G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
Introduction: The study examined age-related differences between young and older
adults’ emotional and psychological experience as well as cognitive functioning
throughout different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.
Materials and Methods: Participants were interviewed by phone when confined at
home during the national lockdown (T1-May 2020; N= 138 young adults; N= 119
older adults) and after the first wave of contagions, when restrictions were discarded
(T2-September 2020; N= 52 young adults; N= 59 older adults). A sub-sample
also participated in a third assessment (T3-December 2020). Participants completed
questionnaires assessing their emotional and psychological functioning (i.e., positive and
negative affect, perceived social and emotional loneliness, resilience) along with memory
tasks (Backward Digit Span task and words list recall).
Results: Although individuals reported less positive and more negative emotions
during the lockdown than at T2, results showed that older adults displayed overall
fewer negative emotions and greater resilience than young adults. The latter were
those who reported feeling more emotionally lonely when compared to their older
counterpart during the lockdown than afterward. Older adults’ advantage in emotional
and psychological functioning was also confirmed 7 months after the national lockdown.
Only age-related differences in favor of young adults for the memory tasks were
found. The measures of interest were also susceptible to mood and/or concerns of
COVID-19 effects.
Discussion: These findings further highlight the age-related advantage of older
adults managing the emotional and psychological experience even when facing an
unexpected, prolonged, and unpredictable, stressful life event such as the COVID-
19 pandemic.
Keywords: emotional functioning, psychological functioning, cognitive performance, age-related differences,
COVID-19 pandemic
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Carbone et al. Emotions, Cognition Throughout COVID-19 Pandemic
INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 pandemic has represented an unexpected and
prolonged stressful situation, with the potential of impacting
individuals’ emotional and psychological functioning. Hence, a
growing number of studies are interested in understanding the
emotional and psychological consequences of the COVID-19
outbreak in young and healthy older adults.
The studies exploring age differences between young and older
adults’ emotional reactions experienced during the first acute
phase of the pandemic (March-June 2020) found that older adults
showed higher emotional well-being (Carstensen et al., 2020),
lower stress, and negative affect (Ceccato et al., 2020;Young
et al., 2021) than younger adults when facing the unexpected
and inescapable stressors imposed by the COVID-19 lockdown.
During the lockdown, older individuals also felt less lonely than
younger adults, thereby showing less vulnerability to the effects
of social distancing (e.g., Bu et al., 2020;Luchetti et al., 2020;
Varga et al., 2021). Furthermore, when considering resilience, a
dynamic process of recovering from adversity which it configures
as a crucial (psychological) protective factor to cope with the
COVID-19 pandemic implications (e.g., Holmes et al., 2020),
older adults’ perceived ability to cope with adversities was less
influenced by COVID-19-related stressful events compared to
younger adults (e.g., McCleskey and Gruda, 2021;Rossi et al.,
2021). Such a pattern of findings showed how aging seemed to
be associated with better emotional and psychological outcomes
during the COVID-19 lockdown, which is in line with a well-
proven theoretical framework on aging and emotions such as the
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST; Carstensen et al., 2003).
According to the SST, due to their constrained temporal horizons,
older adults experience motivational shifts toward prioritizing
emotionally meaningful and positive goals and experiences with
advancing age (e.g., Lockenhoff and Carstensen, 2004;Charles
and Carstensen, 2010). Empirical evidence has, for instance,
demonstrated that older adults display selective attention toward
positive stimuli and show aversiveness toward negative ones (e.g.,
Fairfield et al., 2015). As a result, older adults experience high
level of psychological well-being and display greater emotional
regulation than young adults (Charles and Carstensen, 2010;
Burr et al., 2021). Such a positive emotions-oriented attitude
characteristic of older age may have therefore allowed older adults
to display greater emotional and psychological functioning,
than their younger counterparts, even when facing a stressful
emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is worth highlighting that these studies depicted the
unique effects of the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak
(when individuals were confined at home due to the lockdown
restrictions) and lack an “as-usual” everyday normal condition
to compare data with. Moreover, the health emergency lasted
throughout 2020. Like other life-stressful events, COVID-
19 might have caused detrimental effects on individuals’
psychological and emotional well-being in the long term (Wang
et al., 2020). Therefore, it is worth investigating to what extent the
emotional and psychological effects of the pandemic and the age
advantage, shown in such domains by older adults, change –or is
maintained– over time.
Apart from young and older adults’ psychological and
emotional fallout, which the SST can account, lockdown
restrictions have also led individuals to cope with an
impoverished environment, in terms of cognitive and socially
stimulating activities and experiences, that are, however, known
to have a role in counteracting/delaying age-related cognitive
decline (Reuter-Lorenz and Park, 2014). At the same time,
cognitive functioning is known also to be affected when stressful
situations occur (e.g., Scott et al., 2015;Boals and Banks,
2020). Therefore, the lack of an “enriched” and stimulating
environment, due to lockdown restrictions, and the unexpected
and prolonged stressful emergency individuals had to manage,
might have likely broadly impacted cognitive functioning as well.
Interestingly, little attention has been devoted to understanding
whether and to what extent the COVID-19 lockdown and the
following restrictions have affected such other crucial domain
of our functioning, as the cognitive one, however. The two
studies that examined the COVID-19 lockdown influence in
this domain, highlighted that attention, executive functions,
and temporal orientation (Fiorenzato et al., 2021), as well as
daily functioning (Reading Turchioe et al., 2021), were perceived
as the most affected cognitive abilities during the lockdown,
whereas an improvement in the memory domain was perceived
(Fiorenzato et al., 2021). Also, younger adults reported higher
cognitive complaints than their older counterpart (Fiorenzato
et al., 2021;Reading Turchioe et al., 2021). These studies,
however, focused on the very first wave of the pandemic and
were based on self-reported measures that assessed participants’
perception of changes in their cognitive abilities during the
lockdown compared to before. Thus, it is still unknown whether
objective cognitive outcomes might have changed in young and
older adults through the pandemic.
For the first time (at least to our knowledge), the present
study aimed to ascertain age-related differences between young
and older adults’ emotional and psychological experiences
throughout different phases of the COVID-19 health emergency
in Italy. In addition, changes in cognitive functioning, in
particular in the memory domain, were jointly investigated using,
for the first time, classical tasks assessing two memory domains
sensitive to age-related decline, i.e., working memory -WM-
(Borella et al., 2007, 2019;Gamboz et al., 2009) and episodic
memory (Park, 2002).
To these aims, young and community-dwelling healthy older
participants completed several questionnaires assessing different
emotional and psychological factors (positive and negative
affects, social and emotional loneliness, resilience), along with
WM and long-term memory tasks (Backward Digit Span task
and words list recall, respectively) on two occasions: (i) during
the first national lockdown, when several activities (e.g., shops
selling non-essential goods, educational –schools, university–,
social and leisure activities services and infrastructures) were
closed and people were allowed to leave their homes only for
a short amount of time and for documented purposes (e.g.,
health issues, shopping for basic necessities, to go to work if
this cannot be done from home) (T1; May 2020); and (ii) in
the period following the first wave of the pandemic, when the
stay-at-home and travel ban rules were dismissed and people
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Carbone et al. Emotions, Cognition Throughout COVID-19 Pandemic
were allowed again to engage work, social and leisure activities as
usual (T2; September 2020). These two timepoints allowed us to
depict age-related differences in the emotional and psychological
experience and memory outcomes throughout the pandemic due
to changes in restriction regulations. T2 indeed also served as an
“as-usual” lifestyle routine situation condition (no restrictions)
to be compared with the lockdown timepoint (T1). A third
interview was also planned 7 months after the first lockdown (T3;
December 2020), to follow up on the impact of the COVID-19
outbreak on psychological, emotional, and cognitive outcomes.
What appeared to be the end of the emergency in our country in
September (T2), however, was then followed by a second wave
of contagions (since October 2020) that made it necessary to
restore stricter restrictions rules encompassing national curfew,
travel restrictions, and limited work, social and leisure activities.
Our third assessment occasion (T3) was therefore unexpectedly
characterized again by restrictions, thereby configuring as a
condition that mirrored the one that occurred during the first
timepoint (the national lockdown) more than an “as-usual” post-
pandemic situation.
In line with previous studies (e.g., Carstensen et al., 2020), we
expected older adults to show an advantage in terms of emotional
and psychological outcomes during the different phases of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we expected older adults to
(i) feel more positive and less negative emotions compared to
younger adults (e.g., Luchetti et al., 2020); and (ii) be more
resilient and less lonely than younger adults throughout the
different timepoints (e.g., Rossi et al., 2021). Regarding the WM
and episodic memory tasks, we explored whether any changes
occurred between the two considered timepoints. Since the
lockdown has impacted the everyday life cognitive and social
“enriched” environment, we expected an accentuation of the age-
related differences in favor of younger adults (e.g., Borella et al.,
2007, 2019). However, given the short period (about 4 months)
between the two timepoints, no cognitive changes due to the
different restriction regulations were expected. Therefore, we
finally explored whether changes in the examined measures were
maintained or emerged in the longer term (T3). Since mood
(depression) and worries of contagion from COVID-19 have
been suggested to be among the vulnerability factors on mental
health and cognitive outcomes associated with this stressful
situation (e.g., Carstensen et al., 2020;De Pue et al., 2021), their
impact on the psychological and emotional as well as cognitive
outcomes considered was examined.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Participants
One hundred and forty-one young adults (age range: 18–44 years)
and 157 older adults (age range: 64–82 years), all Italian and
recruited by word of mouth, volunteered for the study and
completed an individual phone interview during the national
lockdown (T1; May 2020). Participants were contacted again in
a subsequent period, and 52 young adults and 69 older adults
agreed to participate in a second interview (T2; September 2020).
Twenty-four young adults and 37 older adults also completed
a third interview -which corresponded to a second wave of the
pandemic– (T3; December 2020).
Exclusion criteria were: (i) current or past COVID-19
infection, (ii) serious health issues and/or use of medication
(antidepressants, anxiolytics), as assessed by a semi-structured
interview (De Beni et al., 2008), and (iii) for older adults, signs
of cognitive impairment, i.e., a score below 17 to the Montreal
Cognitive Assessment-BLIND classical and widely used cognitive
functioning screening measure (Wittich et al., 2010).
The final sample included 138 young adults and 119 older
adults at T1, 52 young adults and 59 older adults at T2, and 18
young adults and 31 older adults at T3.
Materials
Emotional and Psychological Functioning
The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson
et al., 1988) consists of 20 adjectives describing different feelings
assessing positive and negative affective states. Participants were
asked to rate how they felt from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely)
in the previous month (T1: April, T2: August, T3: November),
higher scores corresponding to greater positive and negative
affects, respectively (maximum = 50).
The Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale (Capotosto et al.,
2017) comprises six items assessing emotional and social
loneliness. Participants were asked to rate their agreement
with each item from 1 (absolutely true) to 5 (absolutely not
true) regarding the previous month (T1: April, T2: August,
T3: November). The dependent variables were the sum of the
three items for emotional and social loneliness, respectively,
with lower scores indicating higher social and emotional
loneliness (maximum = 15).
The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale–10 items (Campbell-
Sills and Stein, 2007) assesses the ability to cope with adversity.
Participants were asked to rate each item from 0 (not true at
all) to 4 (true nearly all the time) in relation to the previous
month (T1: April, T2: August, T3: November), with higher scores
corresponding to a greater resilience (maximum = 40).
Memory Performance
The Backward Digit Span task (adapted from the battery by
De Beni et al., 2008) involves presenting a series of digits (1 s
per digit). Participants had to repeat the series of digits in
the backward order. The series started from two digits and
rose to eight, each level containing two strings of digits. One
point was assigned for each sequence correctly recalled. The
final score corresponded to the total number of correct trials
recalled (maximum = 14).
The word list recall task involves presenting an ad hoc list of
15 words (adapted from Carretti et al., 2011) at a rate of 2 s per
word. Participants had to repeat as many words as they could
remember immediately after the list was presented (immediate
recall) and after 10 min (delayed recall). One point was assigned
for each word correctly recalled. The final scores corresponded to
the total number of correct words recalled for both the immediate
and delayed recall tasks (maximum = 15), respectively.
Three parallel versions for each memory measure were created
and used in a counterbalanced fashion across timepoints.
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Carbone et al. Emotions, Cognition Throughout COVID-19 Pandemic
Mood and Fear of COVID-19
The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck et al., 1996) and
the Geriatric Depression Scale- 15 items (GDS; Yesavage et al.,
1982) are self-report of depressive symptoms for young and older
adults, respectively.
The Fear of COVID-19 questionnaire (Di Crosta et al., 2020)
assesses the conviction of being infected by COVID-19, either
in the past or in the future (Beliefs of Contagion Scale -BCS),
and the possibility of suffering severe consequences (i.e., being
hospitalized or dying) due to the contagion (Consequences of
Contagion Scale -CCS), referred to either self or loved ones’
health. Participants answered on a scale from 0 (not at all) to
100 (extremely) in relation to the previous month (T1: April,
T2: August, T3: November), with higher scores corresponding to
greater worries of being infected or suffering severe consequences
due to the contagion, respectively.
Procedure
Participants were contacted by phone to complete a single 90 min
interview while confined at home due to the COVID-19 outbreak
(T1; 1–20 May 2020). Participants were asked to place in a
quiet area of their home to avoid hearing issues. After obtaining
their consent, the experimenter guided participants through the
completion of tasks and questionnaires -ensuring that they were
able to hear and understand the instructions and stimuli clearly-
as following: a semi-structured interview assessing demographic
characteristics as well as physical and mental health status, the
MOCA-BLIND (cognitive functioning screening for older adults
only), the Backward Digit Span task, the word list-immediate
recall, the Resilience scale, the word list-delayed recall, the Social
and Emotional Loneliness Scale, the PANAS, the BDI-II (young
adults) or the GDS (older adults), and the Fear of COVID-
19 questionnaire. Participants completed the same survey also
during the second (T2; 1–20 September 2020) and the third (T3;
1–20 December 2020) interviews.
Statistical Analyses
To assess age-related differences between young and older
adults’ mood (depression), worries of contagion from COVID-
19, psychological and emotional experience, and memory
performance throughout different phases of the COVID-19
pandemic, linear mixed-effects models (Pinheiro and Bates, 2000)
were run for all the measures of interest with Age group (young
adults vs. older adults) and Time (T1 vs. T2) as predictors,
and random intercepts for participants. Maximum likelihood
estimation was used. The significance of the effects was tested
with the likelihood ratio test for nested models based on chi
square distribution. Then, the psychological, emotional, and
memory outcomes models were run again with mood (depression
scores)1, BCS, and CCS as covariates to control for such
vulnerability factors.
The same analyses (linear mixed-effects models with
covariates) were also run considering the third interview (T3)
1To obtain a unique measure for depressive symptoms to be used as a covariate in
the analyses, standardized scores, age group-centered considering the scores at T1,
were computed.
to ascertain whether the pattern of results between T1 and T2
was confirmed. However, due to the small sample of participants
that completed the third interview, these analyses have mainly
descriptive/qualitative purposes.
RESULTS
The descriptive statistics of demographic characteristics, the
measures of interest by age group and assessment occasion,
and results from independent t-tests between young and older
adults who did complete both interviews at T1 and at T2 and
those who did complete only T1 are shown in Supplementary
Materials-Section A.
Mood and Fear of COVID-19
Regarding mood, a main effect of Time emerged for young
adults only, who reported lower BDI-II scores at T2 than at T1
(see Supplementary Materials-Section B). The 28.26% of young
adults and 15.96% of older adults at T1, and 7.69% of young
adults and 15.25% of older adults at T2, scored above the cut-off
of the BDI-II and the GDS, respectively.
As for the Fear of COVID-19 questionnaire, younger adults
reported a higher belief of being infected by COVID-19
than older adults. In contrast, older adults reported greater
worries of suffering severe consequences from contagion (see
Supplementary Materials-Section B).
Emotional and Psychological
Functioning
Results showed only a significant main effect of Time for the
PANAS-Positive emotions, participants reporting lower positive
emotions at T1 than at T2. Significant main effects of Age group
and Time emerged for the PANAS-Negative emotions. Older
adults reported lower negative emotions than younger adults.
Overall, participants reported higher negative emotions at T1
than at T2 (see Table 1).
For the Emotional loneliness scale, significant main effects
of Age group and Time emerged. Older adults reported lower
emotional loneliness than younger adults. All participants
reported higher emotional loneliness at T1 compared to T2 (see
Table 1). The Age group ×Time interaction was significant
(see Table 1), and planned contrasts indicated that both young
and older adults reported a higher emotional loneliness at T1
compared to T2 (ß = 1.94 [1.42; 2.46], p<0.001; ß = 0.70
[0.19; 1.21], p= 0.032), and young adults perceived a higher
emotional loneliness than older adults at T1 (ß = 1.36 [0.84; 1.88],
p<0.001), but not at T2 (ß = 0.12 [−0.62; 0.85], p= 1.00).
For the Social loneliness scale, no significant effects emerged (see
Table 1).
Regarding the Resilience scale, results showed only a
significant main effect of Age group. Older adults reported higher
resilience than younger adults (see Table 1).
When adding mood (depression), BCS, and CCS as covariates
in the models, the mood was a significant covariate for all
the emotional and psychological outcomes and the BCS was
a significant covariate for the PANAS-Negative emotions (see
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Carbone et al. Emotions, Cognition Throughout COVID-19 Pandemic
Table 2 and Figure 1). Results were confirmed for all the
outcomes except for the Social loneliness scale, for which a
main effect of Time emerged. Individuals reported lower social
loneliness at T1 compared to T2 (see Table 2).
Memory Performance
As for the Backward Digit Span task, results showed only
a significant main effect of Age group with younger adults
outperforming older adults (see Table 1).
Concerning the word list recall tasks, results showed a
significant main effect of Age group for both the immediate and
delayed recall with younger adults outperforming older adults.
A significant main effect of Time also emerged for both the
immediate and delayed recall. Participants recalled fewer words
during the lockdown (T1) than at T2 (see Table 1).
When adding mood, the BCS, and the CCS as covariates in
the model, the main effect of Time for both the immediate and
delayed recall was no longer significant. The CCS scale was a
significant covariate for the WM measure, and the BCS was a
significant covariate for the word list delayed recall (see Table 2
and Figure 1).
Additional Analyses
When considering T3 (see Supplementary Materials- Additional
analyses section), older adults reported more positive and less
negative emotions than younger adults for the PANAS scales.
Regardless of age group, participants reported less positive and
TABLE 1 | Results of the linear mixed-effects models for the measures of interest.
Measure of interest Effect χ2df p
PANAS-Positive emotions Age group 1.620 1 0.203
Time 24.872 1 <0.001
Age group ×Time 1.936 1 0.164
PANAS-Negative emotions Age group 32.561 1 <0.001
Time 13.174 1 <0.001
Age group ×Time 0.015 1 0.901
Emotional loneliness Age group 7.352 1 0.007
Time 41.139 1 <0.001
Age group ×Time 9.982 1 0.002
Social loneliness Age group 0.987 1 0.321
Time 3.058 1 0.080
Age group ×Time 1.206 1 0.272
Resilience Age group 16.829 1 <0.001
Time 0.138 1 0.710
Age group ×Time 0.031 1 0.860
Backward Digit Span task Age group 40.748 1 <0.001
Time 0.448 1 0.503
Age group ×Time 0.546 1 0.460
Word list-immediate recall Age group 19.464 1 <0.001
Time 4.396 1 0.036
Age group ×Time 2.171 1 0.141
Word list-delayed recall Age group 20.160 1 <0.001
Time 4.525 1 0.033
Age group ×Time 1.319 1 0.251
more negative emotions at T1 than T2, but no differences
between T3 and T1 and T2 emerged.
Results on emotional loneliness confirmed lower scores for
older adults than younger ones. Participants reported higher
emotional loneliness at T1 than at T2 and felt less emotionally
lonelier at T2 than at T3; the latter did not differ from T1. The Age
group ×Time interaction was no longer significant. For Social
loneliness, the main effect of Time was no longer significant.
For the Resilience scale, the pattern of results found between
T1 and T2 was confirmed. Older adults reported a higher
resilience than their younger counterpart also in the long term.
Results at T3 also confirmed the age-related differences in
favor of younger adults for the WM measure and the word
list recall tasks.
The mood was always a significant covariate for the emotional
and psychological outcomes and emerged as a significant
covariate for the word list recall tasks. The BCS was always a
significant covariate for the PANAS-Negative emotions and the
word list delayed recall, while the CCS scale for the WM measure.
Finally, as a further additional analysis to investigate
any associations between changes in emotional, psychological,
and cognitive outcomes, correlations between change indexes
expressing the difference between scores at T1 and scores at T2
for each measure of interest (controlled for mood, BCS, and
CCS change indexes) were run by age group. Results showed
that younger adults, who displayed better performance in the
word list immediate recall task between the lockdown and the
subsequent timepoint, showed greater positive affect between T1
and T2 (r= 0.31, p<0.05). Furthermore, those who showed
a better performance between T1 and T2 in the WM measure
reported lower emotional loneliness (r= 0.31, p<0.05). Instead,
no significant associations between changes in the emotional,
psychological, and cognitive outcomes emerged for older adults.
DISCUSSION
The present study examined age-related differences throughout
the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy between young and older
adults’ emotional and psychological experience and classical
cognitive measures assessing memory abilities (not self-reported)
important for everyday life functioning (WM and long-term
memory) and sensitive to age-related effects. The lockdown
phase (T1, restrictions), a subsequent timepoint mirroring an
“as-usual” lifestyle routine situation (T2, no restrictions), and
a third timepoint (T3, analyzed for qualitative purposes) were
considered. The latter coincided with the second wave of
the pandemic characterized by the reimplementation of the
restrictions (a condition similar to T1).
In line with our expectations and previous evidence (e.g.,
Carstensen et al., 2020;Ceccato et al., 2020), our results showed
that young and older adults displayed a different psychological
and emotional experience of the COVID-19 lockdown. Although
all individuals perceived higher negative and lower positive affect
during the lockdown (T1) than in the subsequent “as-usual”-
like situation (T2), older adults reported overall lower negative
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FIGURE 1 | Models plots by age group (young adults vs. older adults) and time (T1-May 2020 vs. T2-September 2020) for each measure of interest. PANAS positive
emotions scale (A); PANAS negative emotions scale (B); Emotional loneliness scale (C); Social loneliness scale (D); Resilience scale (E); Backward Digit Span Task
(F); Word list immediate recall (G); Word list delayed recall (H). Plots of the models with mood, BCS, and CCS as covariates. For the Social and Emotional
Loneliness scales lower scores correspond to higher perceived social and emotional loneliness, respectively.
emotions, as well as a higher resilience (as discussed below),
compared to their younger counterpart. The lockdown was
also found to have a significant role on emotional loneliness,
i.e., individuals reported negative feelings of detachment and
lack of deep and meaningful relationships while confined at
home (T1) more than in the subsequent timepoint (T2). This
was particularly true for younger adults, who reported feeling
emotionally lonelier than older adults, at T1 compared to T2. It is
then worth highlighting that, in line with previous evidence (e.g.,
Rossi et al., 2021), compared with older adults, younger adults
were those who reported higher depressive symptoms during the
lockdown than afterward.
Such a pattern of findings for the emotional and psychological
outcomes was also confirmed when considering T3 -albeit for
qualitative purposes due to the small sample of young and
older participants completing the third interview-. Older adults
still showed better emotional and psychological functioning,
together with higher positive emotions (not showed when
considering only T1 and T2) than younger adults. However, at
T3, participants’ scores on the Emotional loneliness scale tended
to align with those reported at T1, and ratings on the PANAS
scales were in between those reported at T1 and T2. Although
T3 results need to be considered with caution, they further
highlight the impact of restrictions imposing physical distancing
on individuals’ emotional and psychological functioning and
call upon the need to examine the effects of this emergency in
the longer term.
It is worth mentioning that, though restrictions might be
seen to have likely impacted young adults’ usual lifestyle habits
the most, our older adult sample also reported to have a quite
active lifestyle (i.e., engagement in several leisure, social and
physical activities), and have had to cope with disrupted daily
routines during the lockdown. Moreover, these results were
found even though older adults reported greater worries of
suffering severe consequences (i.e., being hospitalized or dying)
due to the contagion than younger adults, but lower concerns
about being infected by COVID-19, as suggested by the scores
for the BCC and the CCS. Findings, therefore, are in line with the
SST (Carstensen et al., 2003): the adaptive changes in emotion
regulation that characterize older age (in which emotionally
meaningful and positive goals and experiences are prioritized)
might explain why, although both groups were worried about
the COVID-19, older adults, compared to younger adults, were
more able to regulate their emotional reactions, especially the
negative affects also related to emotional loneliness. Furthermore,
such a greater emotion regulation, along with several major life
events faced throughout their life (and therefore a bigger wealth
of experience), might also explain why older adults reported
a higher resilience compared to younger adults (e.g., Rossi
et al., 2021), thereby feeling able to face, cope, and adapt more
easily than their younger counterparts to such an unexpected,
unpredictable and stressful situation.
Intriguingly, when considering the perceived amount of social
support, expressed by the social loneliness facet, young and older
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Carbone et al. Emotions, Cognition Throughout COVID-19 Pandemic
TABLE 2 | Results of the linear mixed-effects models including mood and beliefs
and consequences of contagion scales as covariates.
Measure of
interest
Effect χ2df p
PANAS-positive
emotions
Mood 76.594 1 <0.001
Beliefs of contagion 0.550 1 0.458
Consequences of contagion 0.445 1 0.505
Age group 1.889 1 0.169
Time 17.042 1 <0.001
Age group ×Time 0.566 1 0.452
PANAS-negative
emotions
Mood 84.676 1 <0.001
Beliefs of contagion 4.539 1 0.033
Consequences of contagion 0.145 1 0.703
Age group 30.135 1 <0.001
Time 7.843 1 0.005
Age group ×Time 0.562 1 0.453
Emotional
loneliness
Mood 90.586 1 <0.001
Beliefs of contagion 3.126 1 0.077
Consequences of contagion 0.004 1 0.949
Age group 11.990 1 <0.001
Time 32.221 1 <0.001
Age group ×Time 5.581 1 0.018
Social loneliness Mood 16.328 1 <0.001
Beliefs of contagion 1.928 1 0.165
Consequences of contagion 2.482 1 0.115
Age group 1.034 1 0.309
Time 5.142 1 0.023
Age group ×Time 0.603 1 0.438
Resilience Mood 69.851 1 <0.001
Beliefs of contagion 2.663 1 0.103
Consequences of contagion 0.152 1 0.697
Age group 23.276 1 <0.001
Time 0.629 1 0.428
Age group ×Time 0.419 1 0.518
Backward Digit
Span task
Mood 1.626 1 0.202
Beliefs of contagion 0.066 1 0.797
Consequences of contagion 5.929 1 0.015
Age group 28.712 1 <0.001
Time 0.113 1 0.736
Age group ×Time 0.936 1 0.333
Word
list-immediate recall
Mood 3.587 1 0.058
Beliefs of contagion 3.672 1 0.055
Consequences of contagion 1.568 1 0.210
Age group 10.422 1 0.001
Time 2.608 1 0.106
Age group ×Time 3.016 1 0.082
Word list-delayed
recall
Mood 2.869 1 0.090
Beliefs of contagion 6.561 1 0.010
Consequences of contagion 2.032 1 0.154
Age group 10.014 1 0.002
Time 2.610 1 0.106
Age group ×Time 2.173 1 0.140
adults reported to perceive a higher lack of social support at
T2 than at T1, a pattern that emerged when considering mood
and concerns of COVID-19 effects and which disappeared when
also T3 was considered. The enhanced sense of community (a
shared feeling of “everyone being in it together”), emerged with
the COVID-19 outbreak, together with the use of technology
to maintain social contacts and interactions, might have led
individuals to feel connected with their support network,
especially even when physically isolated (e.g., Luchetti et al.,
2020). We did not ascertain neither participants’ feeling of
connectedness nor their social media usage, however, therefore
these are only speculations that merit further investigations.
Regarding cognitive outcomes, our findings do not seem to
align with previous evidence (Fiorenzato et al., 2021;Reading
Turchioe et al., 2021), which included self-reported measures of
cognitive complaints leading to an over or underestimation of
cognitive changes compared to objective outcomes implemented
in this study. The well-known age-related differences in favor
of younger adults (e.g., Park, 2002;Borella et al., 2007) were
confirmed for both the WM measure and the word list recall
tasks. A different pattern of results emerged depending on the
memory outcomes considered when the different timepoints
effects were examined. Performance in the WM measure was
not affected by restrictions, regardless of controlling or not for
mood and COVID-19 concerns. Long-term memory outcomes,
instead, showed an improvement between T1 and T2. However,
these latter outcomes seemed to be particularly susceptible to
the influence of mood (that emerged more clearly when also
considering T3) and COVID-19 concerns, which overshadowed
any timepoints effects between T1 and T2. Such a pattern
of results suggests how, rather than lockdown restrictions per
se, mood changes and worries related to stressful situations
might impact memory outcomes based on the demands and the
content of the tasks considered, particularly long-term memory
ones considered here. Moreover, associations between positive
changes in terms of emotional functioning and a better memory
performance emerged for younger adults only. These results
might suggest how the less adaptive coping and emotional
responses displayed by younger adults influenced their memory
performance, whereas the functional emotion regulation of older
adults might have allowed them to maintain (not worsen) their
memory performance. It is worth stressing that the relatively
short period of time (about 4 months between T1 and T2 and
about 6 months from T1 when considering T3) occurred between
the considered timepoints, might have prevented to clearly
observe the impact of the lockdown restrictions and the resulted
“impoverished” environment, as well as any interplay between
the psychological and emotional response to the emergency
and cognitive functioning in young and older adults. Further
investigations are therefore needed to ascertain whether the
ongoing stressful situation might have a fallout on cognitive
functioning in the longer term, also as a function of the different
psychological and emotional responses displayed by young and
older adults and the demands and content of the tasks in hand –
e.g., considering memory tasks with emotional stimuli, as well
as other cognitive functions, essential in everyday life (e.g.,
Meneghetti et al., 2011, 2014).
Despite these interesting findings, some limitations have to
be acknowledged. A pre-pandemic baseline assessment would
have helped to better depict the emotional, psychological,
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Carbone et al. Emotions, Cognition Throughout COVID-19 Pandemic
and cognitive fallout of such stressful and extraordinary
times throughout the different pandemic phases (in terms of
restrictions). Although one of our study’s strengths consists
of having data not limited to the restrictions period per se,
results on T3 should be considered with caution and for
qualitative purposes only, due to the small sample of individuals
completing the assessment. However, based on our results, and
since the pandemic is still ongoing, it seems paramount to keep
ascertaining the psychological, emotional, and cognitive fallout
of such extraordinary times also as a function of the changes in
the restrictions that lead to an unpredictable variation of lifestyle
habits, and availability of cognitive stimulating experiences. In
doing so, another aspect that should be considered is whether
the spread of COVID-19 (in terms of number of contagions
in different geographic areas) affected individuals’ emotional
and psychological experience and reactions to the emergency
differently. We attempted to control this aspect by administering
the two Fear of COVID-19 scales, created to assess individuals’
concerns toward being infected by COVID-19 and suffering
from severe consequences due to contagion. Moreover, other
individual characteristics (e.g., personality dispositions) and
protective or risk factors (i.e., coping styles), as well as other
cognitive functions, not examined in this study, should be
considered in the future as they might help delineate individuals
at risk of suffering from negative consequences when this
emergency will end.
Overall, our results suggest that older adults take advantage of
their emotional strengths and resilience even when facing new,
unexpected, and prolonged threats as the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, findings also call upon the need to implement
interventions that promote functional coping strategies to
improve emotion regulation, resilience, and the quality of social
relationships, especially for young adults, during unforeseeable
and prolonged circumstances that impose physical distancing.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be
made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
ETHICS STATEMENT
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and
approved by the Ethical Committee for the Psychological
Research of the School of Psychology, University of Padova,
Padua, Italy. The patients/participants provided their written
informed consent to participate in this study.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
EC contributed to supervising the data collection, analyzing and
interpreting the data, and writing the manuscript. RP contributed
to designing the study, interpreting the data, and writing
the manuscript. ES supervised the data collection and drafted
the manuscript. GL contributed to enrolling and interviewing
participants, supervising the data collection, and organizing the
database. ADD contributed to designing the study and drafted
the manuscript. EB designed the study, contributed to analyzing,
interpreting the data, and writing the manuscript. All authors
read and approved the final manuscript.
FUNDING
This study was supported by a grant Visiting Programme from
Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo (Cariparo) Foundation
to EB. This work was also carried out within the scope of the
“use-inspired basic research” project for which the Department
of General Psychology at the University of Padova has been
recognized as a “Dipartimento di eccellenza” by the Italian
Ministry for the University and Research.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found
online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.
2021.712369/full#supplementary-material
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Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a
potential conflict of interest.
The reviewer MF declared a shared affiliation, though no other collaboration, with
several of the authors RP and ADD to the handling editor.
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