Psychological effects of impending job loss and unemployment: A prospective study on cognitive control, emotion regulation, and distress

Introduction. Important individual differences exist in how people respond to major stressors. Despite the key roles attributed to emotion regulation and cognitive control in resilience and vulnerability to stress, relatively few studies have directly investigated these relationships upon confrontation with major stressors, such as unemployment. The current pre-registered study thus set out to test mediational hypotheses, in which baseline cognitive control (indexed by performance on a cognitive task) and self-reported effortful control predict emotion regulation (follow-up 1), in turn predicting internalizing symptomatology or resilience (follow-up 2). Methods. In this prospective study, data of 84 people confronted with (impending) unemployment was analyzed using path models: one based on the primary outcome measures (repetitive negative thinking and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress) and one based on the secondary outcome measures (positive thinking style and resilience). Results. For effortful control, our hypotheses were confirmed for all symptom types, as well as for resilience. In addition, cognitive control was able to directly predict stress symptoms in particular. The models accounted for substantial proportions in the variance of the outcome variables. Discussion. Effortful control and cognitive control are relevant distal factors to consider when investigating emotional symptoms and resilience, in the context of unemployment.