International Journal of Public Health Science (IJPHS) Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2022, pp. 615~622 ISSN: 2252-8806, DOI: 10.11591/ijphs.v11i2.21372  615 Journal homepage: http://ijphs.iaescore.com Mattering, social support, resilience and sense of empowerment during the pandemic Grace Jee Ern Nga 1 , Daryl Kurian 1,2 , Kususanto Ditto Prihadi 2 , Abdul Aziz 3 1 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral Science, HELP University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Science and Liberal Arts, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 3 English Department, Faculty of Humanity, Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, Malang, Indonesia Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Sep 25, 2021 Revised Jan 4, 2022 Accepted Feb 25, 2022 The sense of empowerment had always been reported as contingent upon resilience, the sense of financial security, and perceived social support (PSS). In the context of the Malaysian urban population, the outbreak shifted social dynamics through the enforcement of movement control order (MCO), a partial-to-full lockdown policy enforced by the government to curb the virus. Studies in the local context suggested that the implementation of MCO led to a sense of uncertainty towards social support and financial security among the population, as well as the decline of resilience and the sense of mattering. This sparked a question, whether the significance of PSS, resilience, mattering, and income levels are still significant in predicting the sense of empowerment among our population. Through open social media pages, 405 adults between 18 and 62 years of age (M=25.44) living in urban areas of Malaysia to respond to the scales of empowerment, resilience, PSS, and mattering with some financial compensation in the form of e-wallet credits. Our findings suggested that PSS was no longer a significant predictor of empowerment after controlling for resilience, mattering, and income, which was opposed to other predictors in the equation that were still significant even after controlling for each other. Further relationships among the variables, implications and suggestions are discussed. Keywords: Empowerment Lock down Mattering Perceived social support Resilience This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Kususanto Ditto Prihadi Department of Psychoogy, Faculty of Social Science and Liberal Arts, UCSI University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Email: ditto@usm.my 1. INTRODUCTION In the context of the present study, we aim to investigate the sense of empowerment among urban area Malaysians during the first break of the COVID-19 pandemic. While this population could not be identified as marginalised, they have been exposed to a prolonged locked-down life. In order to curb the pandemic, some policies have been issued by the government of Malaysia; most of them were rooted in keeping physical distance among people, such as online working from home, online studying from home, temporary closing of public facilities, and interstate travel bans [1]. Because the enforcement of these policies was extended, many individuals had experienced social discomfort and financial hardships [2]. Studies on the locked-down or quarantined population amidst the COVID-19 outbreak had also reported the deterioration of mental health [3], [4] increased gender-based violence based on continued confinement with their abuser [5], financial loss [6] and stigmatisation that might end up as post-traumatic stress [7].