Page 73 - JCBP-3-3

Journal of Clinical and
Basic Psychosomatics Emotional effects of COVID-19 memories

memories on physiological arousal. Furthermore, gender basic demographics (age and gender). Once finished filling
differences in the effect of COVID-19-related memories out the questionnaires, they were led to a room by the
on physiological arousal will also be explored, and it is experimenter and electrodes and a biometer (Obimon)
hypothesized that gender will serve as a moderating factor were then attached to the distal phalanges of the index and
in this relationship. middle fingers of the non- dominant hand to measure EDA.
Participants were seated in front of a laptop and provided
2. Methodology with headphones. All participants received the same
2.1. Participants instructions before the study from the experimenters. The
study was administered in Psychopy software and began
26
The study obtained ethical approval from the university’s with a welcome and instruction slide. An audio recording
Institutional Review Board (Eötvös Loránd University, was played for 2 min to familiarize participants with the
ELTE). The study followed established ethical guidelines experimental conditions and to provide information on
for conducting research with human participants, in what to expect during the experiment. Participants were
accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the then instructed to recall a COVID-19-related memory out of
American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of the nine most common COVID-related stressors that were
Psychologists and Code of Conduct.
chosen in this experiment (detailed explanation is provided
The study sample comprised 45 Hungarian in the COVID-related stressors section). This recall lasted
undergraduate and graduate students from diverse for 40 s, after which a two second-long computer generated
academic fields-andragogy (1), Biology (1), Chemistry (1), tone (800 Hz, set to a comfortable volume) alerted
Business Management (3), History (1), Human Resources participants that a new task was about to start. This was
(2), Information Technology (4), Linguistics (7), Marketing followed by a 30-s task in which participants were asked to
(1), Psychology (3), Special education (9), Sport and think about a white wall, which served as a break between
Recreation Management (3), and Teachers Collage (9)-who memories with the purpose of bringing arousal to baseline
participated in the experiment for course credit. levels. This process was repeated 9 times in total, and the
Eligibility criteria for participation included being a order of memories to recall was randomized for each
Hungarian university student aged 18 or older. Exclusion participant. Before the end of the experiment, participants
criteria encompassed a diagnosed mental health disorder were asked to think about a happy memory (of their own
or current use of medication for treating mental health choosing) to end the study on a positive note. A research
conditions. Participants had the option to withdraw from assistant was present in the room during the entire study
the study at any point without facing any consequences. and a maximum of two participants were in the room at a
time, seated separately with their backs to each other. Once
Data collection commenced on the 18 of May the experiment was over, the devices were detached and
th
2022 and finished on the 30 of May 2022. We obtained participants debriefed, and their questions answered.
th
EDA data from 48 participants; only 45 participants
had electrodermal data for the whole duration of the 2.3. COVID-related stressors
experiment. Unfortunately, due to human error, nine Based on the review of 20 empirical articles that identify
participant’s questionnaire scores were lost, thus only 36 of specific COVID-related stressors, the most commonly
those participants had self-report scores. mentioned items were used to form 9 prompts for memory
The sample size was calculated using G*Power 3.1.8, recall. The stressors and their number of appearances are
assuming a medium effect size, a significance level of 0.05, shown in Table S1. The articles listed in Table S1 were selected
and statistical power of 0.80. The calculation indicated that using systematic searches in databases relevant to psychology,
22 participants were needed to detect significant within- mental health, and public health research, primarily PsycINFO,
subject effects in the experiment. It also showed that 36 PubMed, and Scopus. The search focused on identifying key
participants were required to detect within- and between- stressors frequently associated with COVID-19. The following
subject interactions using repeated measures analysis keywords were used: (“COVID-19” OR “pandemic”) AND
of variance (ANOVA). To be able to include additional (“mental health” OR “stress” OR “anxiety”). The following
variables such as levels of anxiety, and to account for prompts were used in the study:
possible loss of data, we recruited 48 participants. 1. Please think of the time when you had to go into
quarantine or lockdown
2.2. Procedure 2. Please think about the pandemic’s disruption to your
On arrival, participants completed an informed consent daily routine.
form and self-report questionnaires, which also included 3. Please think about the time you or someone close to

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 67 doi: 10.36922/jcbp.4825