The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a considerable impact on various aspects of life, including mental health [1]. The experience of psycho-pathological symptoms, such as insecurity, anxiety, and hopelessness, significantly increased during the first wave of the pandemic [2]. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, several studies have explored the social-ecological aspects of coping with the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. More resilient relationships [3,4] and a social environment that supported basic psychological need satisfaction were associated with higher well-being [5,6]. Moreover, Liu and colleagues found gender differences in China, where post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) were higher in women [7]. If we look at broader ecological aspects, negative mental health impact was more severe under poorer housing conditions [8] and, generally, in low and middle-income countries [9]. These results indicate that social-ecological factors, including the experiences in the home, counted significantly in the mental health outcomes of the pandemic [10]. In the present study, we aim to understand the various patterns of how people found emotional security in their homes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. 1.1. Home as a Place of Security in the PandemicCOVID-19-related challenges generated an unprecedented global level of insecurity for many people. We can assume that coping with these challenges might have been connected to altered home experiences. However, little research addressed the specific role of homes and home-related social-cognitive processes in coping with the pandemic. In a longitudinal study during the first wave of the pandemic, a higher level of initial attachment to the home predicted lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress in two- and four-week follow-ups [11]. Moreover, homes with natural views from the window and pieces of the natural environment close to them were associated with better mental health, even for economically disadvantaged respondents in the pandemic [12,13]. Other research shows that the adverse effects of lockdown amplified the mostly hidden, dark side of home experiences and might have contributed to the loss of personal control and the decreased possibility of finding security and a safe place. Findings showed that lockdown fueled the increase in loneliness, especially among younger women; the level of loneliness was mainly unrelated to the amount of household work (i.e., activity level) [14]. Moreover, women experienced higher-than-average negative mental health issues, especially in vulnerable statuses, such as pregnancy and intimate partner violence [7,15]. In sum, in most cases, the home served as a place for restoration and well-being and could be perceived as a safe haven where the virus was least able to penetrate (compared to work or other outdoor spaces). However, the home could also be increasingly perceived as a “trap” for many during the pandemic [16,17]. 1.2. General Framework: Home as a Personal NicheThe concept of personal niches and environmental self-regulation in the personal niche provide a framework in which we can interpret these different results. Moreover, they show potential paths to better understand unexplored aspects of home experiences in times of global challenges and insecurity. Throughout their lives, people strive to find self-congruent environments [18,19], also called personal niches [20,21], where they can thrive and accomplish meaningful pursuits [22,23]. In this regard, home is one of the vital personal niches in life and one of the main domains of self-accomplishment. Ideally, the home serves as a source of restoration. As such, it plays an essential part in one’s environmental self-regulation.Environmental self-regulation is when people involve physical spaces and places to create their emotional responses and modify their ongoing emotions in response to rapidly changing environmental and social stimuli [24]. According to the hypothesis of environmental self-regulation, self-regulation and emotion-regulation processes involve not only mental, physical, and social strategies but also environmental strategies in which favorite places play an essential role [25]. In research about restorative environments, home environments and specific parts of the respondents’ homes are frequently mentioned as favorite places people cherish in their daily lives and visit when they need to replenish and relax [26].The main aspects of environmental self-regulation include the potential for autonomous and competent activity [11] and good relationships (corresponding to the socio-physical nature of the home environment (c.f., [27])). Moreover, environmental self-regulation also involves the emotional experiences in the places which provide the necessary feedback for the person. Concerning favorite places, Korpela and colleagues [28] showed that visits to these places might affect emotional place experiences and mental well-being, partly by transforming negative cognitions and feelings into positive ones. Interestingly, respondents also reported distress experiences in their favorite place (e.g., loss of self-confidence). Although these experiences were much less common on average than positive experiences, they did show a significant negative relationship with life satisfaction and subjective health status. However, skillful environmental self-regulation can contribute to enduring well-being [28,29].The potential variety of home experiences in the pandemic indicates multiple emotional meanings attached to the home. If we want to transform these general associations into the self-regulation processes in the home as a personal niche during the pandemic, we may assume that homes provide a secure base for individual and relational coping with challenges. At the same time, the self-regulation of stress might have been associated with temporary episodes of despair, doubts, loneliness, and insecurity. Beyond idealistic notions, real-life homes are emotionally patterned spaces where people have several positive and negative experiences that may connect to specific parts of the home at specific times [30]. In this regard, the home as a place of security and, more specifically, the place of security in the home may have a specific role in self-regulation outcomes. 1.3. The Present StudyFrom 11 March to 17 May 2020, the Hungarian government declared a state of emergency throughout the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ordered several measures to block the spread of the infection. The measures included restrictions on citizens leaving their homes, commonly called ‘lockdown.’ Previous research in Hungary [31,32,33] investigated the widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting social changes on physical and mental health. However, these studies did not focus on specific self-regulation processes and the data were mainly published in Hungarian.

In the present research, we explore self-regulation strategies in the home during the first lockdown period of the pandemic in Hungary. More specifically, we investigate how emotional, behavioral, and relational experiences related to the place of security form meaningful configurations in the subjective worlds of the respondents. These configurations may represent specific environmental self-regulation strategies for searching for a physically and emotionally secure personal niche amidst the insecurity the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting measures might have created. The specific aims of the present research are manifold.

First, we focus on security-related experiences since security is one of the fundamental human strivings and the one that was under challenge during the pandemic in a previously unprecedented manner [34]. We assumed that specific niche construction processes would characterize self-regulation in the place of security and, therefore, contribute to coping with pandemic-related stress and well-being.Second, we aimed to assess four niche construction processes correspondingly. Two are organized around the person’s striving for agency and communion [35] that shape the place experience. The two other processes entail emotional states as feedback loops in the process of self-regulation [36]; they include self-recovery and distress, as described by Korpela and colleagues [28]. One specific interest concerned the occurrence of negative emotional experiences in the place of security. Emotional states such as sadness, low self-confidence, and stress were documented in previous research (c.f., [28]). Theoretically, favorite places’ role in self-regulation supports better mental health and restorative experiences. Nevertheless, self-regulation is a dynamic process [29], and negative aspects of emotional experiences in the favorite place may represent a specific type of person-environment congruence. Understanding the role of negative experiences may add to our understanding of environmental self-regulation.Third, we adapt the Emotional Map of the Home Interview (EMHI) for our study, using a new procedure variation. Initially, the EMHI was a qualitative in-depth interview schedule designed to assess the patterned nature of home experiences in their spatial and temporal distribution. Sallay and colleagues [30] presented this unique procedure to explore place-related experiences, meaning-making processes, and relationship processes. We intended to introduce an online, quantified version of the procedure in the present study.Fourth, we adapted a pattern-oriented approach to place experiences. Few studies have examined person–environment patterns in general. Moreover, no research has adopted a pattern-oriented framework (also known as a person-oriented or person-centered approach; [37]) as a theoretical and data analysis approach to home experiences. The pattern-oriented approach treats individual characteristics (variables) as interdependent parts of an integrated, holistic function [38]. In finding secure places at home, individuals’ place-related experiences form an interrelated, integrated field of experiences. The characteristics of these experiences can form specific configurations (types), i.e., nonlinear combinations of characteristics. Knowing these configurations can identify respondent groups with similar secure place experiences in their homes. Thus, the pattern-oriented approach offers a reasonable way to study complex sets of individual characteristics [39].Finally, we want to explore the broader context of secure place experiences at home: their associations with basic social-physical characteristics of the home (e.g., floor area or the number of people living there) and the psychological conditions of good psychological functioning. For the latter, we used two sets of constructs. The satisfaction of basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness was previously found to be conducive to better functioning [5,6]. Moreover, higher life satisfaction was recently theorized to be a potential contextual predictor of increased environmental self-regulatory activity and its better emotional outcomes [28]. Accordingly, we assumed that secure place experiences were connected to the person’s cognitive evaluation of her resources in life and at home: life satisfaction [40] and satisfaction with home [41].

While person-oriented studies typically do not form explicit hypotheses due to the emergent nature of the patterns and the potential nonlinear character of their associations with external variables, we formed a few general assumptions. Specifically, we expected that a higher level of agentic and relational engagement (i.e., agency and communion), and affective experiences of restoration, along with low distress in the place of security in the home, would be predicted by a higher level of basic psychological need satisfaction, life satisfaction and satisfaction with the home during the pandemic.