The relationship between emotion regulation ability and anxiety in adolescents: independent and collaborative mediating roles of adaptive and nonadaptive emotion regulation strategies

Previous studies have shown that the emotion regulation ability and use of strategies of adolescents are closely related to their anxiety level. This study focused on two emotion regulation abilities (distress tolerance and emotion regulation flexibility) and the use of five emotion regulation strategies, namely, distraction, reappraisal, experiential avoidance, suppression and venting, to explore their relationships with anxiety. A total of 1122 Chinese adolescents (M_age = 13.40, SD_age = 0.80, 47.06% female) completed a questionnaire on distress tolerance, emotion regulation flexibility, the use of emotion regulation strategies, and anxiety. The results showed that maladaptive emotion regulation strategies mediated the relationship between distress tolerance and anxiety. Additionally, both adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies mediated the relationship between emotion regulation flexibility and anxiety, with the indirect effect of adaptive emotion regulation strategies being significantly greater than that of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. This finding may also suggest that adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies play distinct roles in mediating the relationship between emotion regulation ability and anxiety; moreover, it indicates that distress tolerance and emotion regulation flexibility involve two different aspects of emotion regulation ability, thus reflecting their inherent unity and specificity. Additionally, it has been found there are gender differences in emotion regulation strategies. Compared with that of males, the mediating effect of adaptive emotion regulation strategies between emotion regulation flexibility and anxiety was not significant in female participants. This may suggest that, in comparison with male adolescents, female adolescents find it more challenging to alleviate anxiety by using adaptive strategies. This study helps to better understand how emotion regulation ability and emotion regulation strategies reduce adolescent anxiety and has implications for the prevention and intervention of adolescent anxiety.