BMC Psychol. 2025 Feb 11;13(1):111. doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-02388-7.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Anxiety, a prevalent and detrimental mental disorder, usually emerges in late adolescence and emerging adulthood. Emotion regulation strategies, namely expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal, share a close relation with the onset and maintenance of anxiety. Yet the relation between anxiety and emotion regulation strategies remains controversial and warrants further clarification.
METHODS: The generalized anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7) was used to measure the anxiety disorders and the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ) was utilized to assess the use of two emotion regulation strategies. In study 1, a total of 2201 college students completed two measurement waves (females = 1358, 61.70%, Mage = 18.37). The cross-lagged model was conducted to identify the directional relation between two emotion regulation strategies and anxiety. In study 2, 3150 college students (females = 1562, 49.59%, Mage = 19.73) completed the measurements. The moderated network model was utilized to clarify the influence of emotion regulation strategy on anxiety from the symptomatic perspective.
RESULTS: In study 1, the results of the cross-lagged model suggested that the level of anxiety in wave 2 could be negatively predicted by the cognitive reappraisal (b = -0.552, p < .01) but not by expressive suppression (b = 0.035, p = .174) in wave 1. In study 2, the results of the moderated network indicated that cognitive reappraisal could moderate the interaction between “Excessive worry”-“Irritability”, “Nervousness” -“Uncontrollable worry”, “Trouble relaxing”-“Nervousness” (GAD1) ,and “Restlessness” -“Irritability”.
CONCLUSIONS: The current study confirmed cognitive reappraisal could serve as a protective factor for anxiety by diminishing the positive relation between “Excessive worry”-“Irritability” and “Nervousness” -“Uncontrollable worry”. This finding may guide clinical workers to develop more targeted interventions using cognitive reappraisal to alleviate anxiety symptoms.
PMID:39934912 | DOI:10.1186/s40359-025-02388-7
