Future orientation and anticipatory emotion regulation during the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of psychopathology and contextual factors
Creators: name: Hagemann, Noëmi
name: Achterhof, Robin
name: Bamps, Eva
name: Janssens, Julie
name: Myin-Germeys, Inez
name: Kirtley, Olivia
name: Akcaoglu, Zeynep
name: Hiekkaranta, Anu P.
name: Lafit, Ginette
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2026
Subjects: subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: future orientation
subject: emotion regulation
subject: experience sampling method

description: In adolescence, people tend to believe that their future is likely to be more positive than negative, that is, they hold a positive future orientation (Compas, Davis &amp; Forsythe, 1985). Currently, most studies of future orientation have focused on thoughts about the distant future with less focus on daily life. This is a relevant gap, given that approximately 30% of spontaneously occurring emotional future thoughts are about something that will happen later that same day (Barsics et al., 2016). Future orientation is also important for mental health, and a positive future orientation has been shown to buffer against depression and anxiety (Zheng, Lippke, Chen, Li &amp; Gan (2019); e.g., Wu, Szpunar, Godovich, Schacter &amp; Hofmann, 2015). At present, few studies have focused on the relationship between future orientation and psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when daily life dramatically changed, testing the mental health of adolescents (Rens et al., 2021), and when a positive future orientation may be particularly beneficial for wellbeing, whilst also being challenged due to lockdown restrictions. To support their mental health and respond adaptively to daily events during the unprecedented changes to their everyday lives, adolescents also need emotion regulation skills. Past research has found that both psychopathology and contextual factors are associated with how young people regulate their daily emotions in response to positive and negative events (Lennarz et al., 2019; Hiekkaranta et al., 2021). At present, no studies have investigated whether contextual factors in emotion regulation are also associated with regulating emotions related to future events, that is, events that have not taken place yet. In the current study, we will use data from the large longitudinal cohort study conducted in Belgium, the SIGMA study (Kirtley et al., 2021). We will use two waves of the SIGMA study: SIGMA COVID-19 Wave (collected in April 2020 – May 2020) as well as SIGMA Wave 2b (collected in Jan 2021–June 2021). With these datasets, we will investigate adolescents’ future orientation during two phases of the pandemic, as well as the role of psychopathology in their future orientation. Moreover, we will investigate the influence of psychopathology and of three of contextual factors in regulating emotions in response to anticipated events: expected event intensity, event importance, and sense of control over the event. Furthermore, we will explore what kind of future events adolescents expect in daily life during the two phases of the pandemic. Finally, previous findings have shown that relationships between psychopathology and protective daily life factors such as the quality of social interactions is stronger during the pandemic than before it (Achterhof et al., 2021). Therefore, we will also investigate the possibility that relationships between psychopathology and anticipatory emotion regulation and future orientation differ between the initial phase of the pandemic and one year into the pandemic.