J Youth Adolesc. 2024 Dec 13. doi: 10.1007/s10964-024-02122-3. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Anxiety symptoms is prevalent among college students and is associated with a range of detrimental consequences. Self-compassion and emotion regulation difficulties are important factors affecting anxiety symptoms, but their functional mechanism and longitudinal correlation are still unclear. This three-year longitudinal study (baseline: n = 5785, 48.2% of female, Mage = 18.63 years, SD = 0.88; T1 to T5: n = range from 4312 to 5497) aimed to validate the emotion regulation model of self-compassion by examining the associations between self-compassion, emotion regulation difficulties, and anxiety symptoms. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs) was used to distinguish within-person variations overtime from stable between-person differences. The results obtained from the RI-CLPMs indicated that there is a bidirectional effect between self-compassion and anxiety symptoms at the within-person level. Emotional regulation difficulties played a longitudinal mediating role in the prediction from self-compassion to anxiety symptoms at the within-person level, validating the emotion regulation model of self-compassion. The current study indicates that cultivating self-compassion in college students is crucial as it can improve their emotion regulation skills and alleviate anxiety symptoms.
PMID:39671055 | DOI:10.1007/s10964-024-02122-3
