Lessons Learned

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly had a profound impact on the psychological well-being of people all over the world. From the fear and uncertainty of the initial outbreak to the ongoing stress of lockdowns and social distancing measures, this crisis has posed significant challenges ranging from mental health to social cohesion. However, it has also created opportunities for us to learn more about the human psyche and to the development of new strategies for supporting mental health and well-being.

By the time this Topical Issue is being published, the beginning of the pandemic will be more than three years ago. Our society has largely returned to normal mode, and pandemic-related protective measures have mostly expired. With some distance, we would like to look at psychological effects, challenges, and opportunities of the pandemic and what we can learn for future crises. The eight original papers focus on particularly affected target groups, including adolescents and students, teachers, crisis managers, and people with low socioeconomic status. The range of methods used in the original research is multifaceted and includes, in addition to subjective surveys, ambulatory assessment, psychophysiological methods of fear conditioning, and genetic research approaches. Many contributions built upon well-characterized longitudinal cohorts.

Focusing on the vulnerable group of adolescents, Eppinger Ruiz de Zarate and colleagues (this issue, 2023) found social distancing measures during the pandemic led to decreased well-being in adolescents. Physical activity and in-person social contacts as assessed via ambulatory assessments were positively related to well-being, while screen time was negatively related, hence pointing toward possible intervention approaches for maintaining youth mental health.

Since students also experienced massive changes in their learning environments, Bosch and Spinath (this issue, 2023) investigated the effects of the learning context in a face-to-face versus online semester on learning motivation in an evidence-based learning approach, comparing two cohorts (pre- and peri-pandemic). Both cohorts showed a decrease in motivation over time, whereas students who reported more learning activities improved their motivation. The lack of effect of the pandemic illustrates that learning motivation can be maintained by appropriate didactic measures even under conditions of an online semester.

Not only students but also teachers were strongly affected by the pandemic. Voss and colleagues (this issue, 2023) showed in an elaborate longitudinal study over 15 years that teachers during the pandemic experienced a pronounced increase in emotional exhaustion and a decrease in enthusiasm during the pandemic. Good technical equipment and high openness, however, represented protective factors, while difficulties with students during the pandemic and high extraversion were risk factors. The findings outline measures how to support teachers to avoid negative consequences for both teachers and students.

For crisis managers, the pandemic was a marathon with an uncertain outcome. Thielsch and colleagues (this issue, 2023) used the job demands–resources model to describe how working conditions affect the resilience and mental health of crisis management team members.

Two studies investigate putative biological risk factors for mental health problems during the pandemic. In a longitudinal twin study (TwinLife panel), Deppe and Zapko-Willmes (this issue, 2023) reported that youth depressive symptoms during the pandemic were less predictable than prepandemic symptoms with a considerable amount of unique environmental variance in youth pandemic depressive symptoms. The amount of genetic variance explained by the predictors increased, however, with the progress of the pandemic, pointing toward plasticity effects.

Gamer and colleagues (this issue, 2023) focused on physiological measures of threat responsiveness acquired via fear conditioning in a comprehensive experimental sample of 441 participants investigated prior to the pandemic. They demonstrated small yet significant effects of decreased differentiation between threat and safety signals among participants with higher depression and anxiety scores being most predictive for increased symptom levels after the onset of the pandemic. Although there is a need for replication, these findings corroborate the role of impaired threat and safety learning interacting with adverse life events as a vulnerability factor for the development of psychopathology.

We close this Topical Issue with two studies that investigated the role of social factors for mental health and health-related behavior. Lalot and Abrams (this issue, 2023) investigated the proximity of social circles on compliance with health-related protective behaviors where close circle norms exerted positive but distant ones, e.g., national norms, resulting in an opposite effect. Interestingly, compliant behavior interacted with close circle norms longitudinally, suggesting that both feed into each other.

Vogel and colleagues (this issue, 2023) report on the relevance of social class for infection rates and accompanying mental health problems as a key health outcome in this pandemic. Utilizing large-scale nationwide data from a representative German sample (Socio-Economic Panel; SOEP), they show that particularly lower-class individuals experienced mental health detriments with higher infection rates. While this effect spread to the general population during the pandemic, lower-class individuals remained to be most strongly affected.

In summary, not only did we learn a lot as individuals from the pandemic, but it also turned out to be a booster for research activities in psychology and health research. The selection of papers in this Topical Issue demonstrates the diversity and methodological quality of research that has been conducted even under difficult pandemic conditions. The results can help develop evidence-based recommendations for dealing with future crises for at-risk groups. Although the specific nature of a crisis always remains idiosyncratic, psychological research can help us make individuals and societies more resilient to them. We wish the readers of the Topical Issue “Psychological Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities” inspiring moments as they look back over the 36 months of the pandemic and rich inspiration for their future research.