The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, well-being, and behavior is likely influenced by individual characteristics that determine one’s capacity for resilience. In this exploratory study, we examined whether individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity and habit propensity (HP), measured before the outbreak, could predict variation in subsequent psychological coping efficacy (as operationalized by measures of depression, mental well-being, perceived stress, and loneliness) and behavioral adjustment (by evaluating compliance and self-reported automaticity of four COVID-19 guidelines) among Dutch older adults (n = 36) during the pandemic (measured April 25 to May 6, 2020). While we found elevated levels of depression and emotional loneliness, overall mental well-being, and perceived stress were not affected by the pandemic. Contrary to our expectations, we found no robust evidence for a protective role of WM in predicting these outcomes, although our findings hint at a positive relationship with perceived change in mental well-being. Interestingly, WM and HP were found to affect the self-reported automaticity levels of adherence to behavioral COVID-19 guidelines (i.e., washing hands, physical distancing), where a strong HP appeared beneficial when deliberate resources were less available (e.g., low WM capacity). These novel and preliminary findings offer new potential avenues for investigating individual differences in resilience in times of major life events or challenges.

COVID-19 大流行对心理健康、幸福感和行为的影响很可能受到个人特征的影响，这些特征决定了一个人的恢复能力。在这项探索性研究中，我们检查了在爆发前测量的工作记忆 (WM) 能力和习惯倾向 (HP) 的个体差异是否可以预测随后的心理应对效能的变化（通过抑郁、心理健康、荷兰老年人 ( n  = 36)在大流行（2020 年 4 月 25 日至 5 月 6 日测量）。虽然我们发现抑郁和情绪孤独程度升高，但整体心理健康和感知压力并未受到大流行的影响。与我们的预期相反，我们没有发现强有力的证据表明 WM 在预测这些结果方面具有保护作用，尽管我们的研究结果暗示与心理健康的感知变化呈正相关。有趣的是，发现 WM 和 HP 会影响自我报告的遵守 COVID-19 行为准则（即洗手、保持身体距离）的自动化程度，其中当刻意的资源较少（例如，低 WM）时，强大的 HP 似乎是有益的容量）。