Psychological well-being and reactive aggression in Latin America in the time of COVID-19

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has generated consequences for the mental health of people, affecting their well-being. Regardless of the culture and context where people find themselves and depending on their individual situation and vulnerability, some may use certain adaptive psychological resources such as patience or inappropriate ones such as fear and aggression when faced with a non-normative event that generates stress such as a pandemic is, even going so far as to alter the perception of psychological well-being and affect health, Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the influence of patience, fear of contracting COVID-19, and stress on psychological well-being and reactive aggression, in the general Latin American population. Method: 1,138 adults participated, 759 women and 379 men from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, who answered the Brief Scale of Patience, the Stress Scale, the Scale on fear of contracting COVID-19, the Scale of Psychological Well-being, and the Aggression Scale. Results: Structural equation modeling was used. A large effect size was found in the explained variance of psychological well-being in the four samples, and a large effect size was found in the explained variance of reactive aggression in Colombia, Peru, and Chile, and a medium effect in Mexico. Conclusion: adaptive variables cushion the adverse effects of the uncertainty caused by a pandemic. It is recommended to use this knowledge to generate strategies that increase psychological well-being and reduce reactive aggression.