Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic had global consequences for billions of individuals, including high rates of mortality and morbidity, lost income, and prolonged social isolation. In the short and long term, this crisis will have an impact on people's lives and mental health. The current correlational study looks at how internal state language, stress, and coping are used in college students' narratives concerning the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown experiences in relation to psychological well-being. A sample of 216 undergraduate students completed surveys that recorded their narrative experiences of COVID-19, psychological well-being, depression severity, and measure of how stressful occurrences in one’s life are perceived. The participants’ narratives, stress, coping, stress categories, and coping categories were all coded from the obtained data. According to the findings, the more internal state language individuals used to describe their COVID-19 experiences, the greater their depression levels were. The use of greater internal state language in Covid-19 narratives was also linked to improved overall psychological well-being. In Covid-19 narratives, more stress is linked to worse mental health, depression, perceived stress, and environmental mastery. Greater attempts to cope are linked to improved mental health. We also observed that people become less autonomous when they are under a lot of social and relational stress. Overall, our findings expand existing knowledge about trauma narratives and coping in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic by giving significant theoretical and practical insights into how narrative processing of the pandemic helped students cope with stress.

Thesis Completion

2022

Semester

Spring

Thesis Chair/Advisor

Zaman, Widaad

Degree

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Psychology

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Release Date

5-1-2022

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