Measures of Psychological and Emotional States

We used the English version of validated scales and questionnaires to measure psychological and emotional states. These online and self-reported tools included the following: the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21; Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995), Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R; Weiss and Marmar, 1997), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al., 1988), and the UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS; Russell et al., 1978).

The Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to be representative of our samples. DASS-21 is a 21-item measure of self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress over the past week. The seven-item depression scale (α = 0.92–0.96) covers hopelessness (e.g., “I felt that I had nothing to look forward to”), dysphoria (e.g., “I felt down-hearted and blue”), and anhedonia (e.g., “I couldn’t seem to experience any positive feeling at all”). The seven-item anxiety scale (α = 0.87–0.88) addresses situational anxiety (e.g., “I was worried about situations in which I might panic and make a fool of myself”) and autonomic arousal (e.g., “I experienced breathing difficulty”). The seven-item stress scale (α = 0.90–0.94) covers nervous arousal (e.g., “I felt scared without any good reason”) and difficulty relaxing (e.g., “I found it difficult to relax”). DASS-21 is rated using a 5-point scale (0 = very slightly or not at all to 4 = extremely). IES-R includes 22 items assessing subjective responses to a specific traumatic event during the past week. IES-R has three subscales: eight-item intrusion (α = 0.78–0.84) (e.g., “I had dreams about it”), eight-item avoidance (α = 0.78–0.91) (e.g., “I tried not to think about it”), and six-item hyperarousal (α = 0.71–0.90) (e.g., “I felt watchful and on-guard”). IES-R items were rated on a 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely) scale (Weiss, 2004). PANAS is a 20-item questionnaire where 10 items measure positive affect (α = 0.87–0.92) (e.g., “Proud” “Inspired”) and 10 items measure negative affect (α = 0.82–0.93) (e.g., “Distressed” “Afraid”) over the preceding week. Participants rated the PANAS on a 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely) scale. ULS (α = 0.90–0.94) is a 20-item self-report measure of subjective loneliness (e.g., “I lack companionship”) and social isolation (e.g., “I am no longer close to anyone”) rated on a 4-point scale (0 = I never feel this way to 3 = I often feel this way).