Ruminative thoughts induced by the COVID-19 pandemic have an adverse impact on individual well-being. However, little is known about how to alleviate such a negative effect – let alone how a person can flourish during crises. The current study uses the self-determination model of flow to propose that two proactive behaviors, strength use and playful design, are positively related to the flow experience, which, in turn, is positively related to daily flourishing. Moreover, we propose that the effects of proactive behaviors on flow are stronger when individuals ruminate more about COVID-19 pandemic. Using a day reconstruction method, we collected data from university students across five consecutive days (N-person = 135, N-day = 665, N-activity = 2985). Multilevel results showed that strengths use and playful design were positively related to flow experience. In turn, flow experience was positively related to daily flourishing. Moreover, we found that COVID-19 rumination moderated the associations between proactive behaviors and flow, such that strengths use and playful design were more effective to foster flow when individuals had a higher (vs. lower) level of rumination. The results imply that in order to function well and flourish during a crisis, individuals could make use of their strengths or playfully design the activities in their daily lives. In a broader sense, we provide concrete behavioral strategies to cope with the downsides of negative events.

In times of uncertainty, such as during COVID-19, many organizations experience profit decline, and employees develop a fear of external threats, such as organizational layoffs. However, most of the literature focuses on how people’s fear influences their well-being. Less is known about how employees’ fear of external threats influences their workplace behaviors. The current study proposes that supervisors’ fear of external threats stimulates those who are high in trait anger to behave in a more abusive way. Simultaneously, subordinates’ fear of external threats would strengthen the positive relationship between abusive supervision and their burnout and compulsory citizenship behaviors (CCB), as fear of external threats constrains their response options to abusive supervision. We tested the hypotheses with a multiwave and multisource survey study (N = 322 dyads) in China, and the results showed that supervisors’ fear of external threats strengthened the positive effect of trait anger on abusive supervision. Subordinates’ fear of external threats strengthens the positive relationships of abusive supervision with CCB and the mediating effect of abusive supervision in the relationship of supervisors’ trait anger with subordinates’ CCB. Our study enriches people’s understanding of how supervisors’ and subordinates’ fear of external threats may play roles in workplace behaviors.