Investigating the Link Between Dispositional Mindfulness, Beliefs About Emotions, Emotion Regulation and Psychological Health: A Model Testing Study

Despite this general distinction regarding emotion regulation strategies and the negative psychological outcomes associated with the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, the question of why some individuals are more likely to use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies more than adaptive emotion regulation strategies is yet to be answered. One of the possibilities to answer this question is individuals' beliefs about emotions. Grounded in mindset theory from the social psychology field and mentalization theory, biosocial theory, and emotional schema theory from the clinical field, this study utilized structural equation modeling to investigate the relationships between dispositional mindfulness, beliefs about emotions, emotion regulation, symptoms of emotional disorders and well-being in a sample of young adults. The sample consisted of 608 young adults aged between 18 and 29. The participants were administered the Demographic Information Form, Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R), Beliefs About Emotions Questionnaire (BAEQ), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire - Short Form (CERQ-SF), Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21), and Mental Health Continuum Scale - Short Form (MHC-SF). The results revealed that beliefs about emotions mediated the relationships between dispositional mindfulness and adaptive/maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, symptoms of emotional disorders, and well-being, respectively. Both maladaptive and adaptive emotion regulation strategies were also found to be mediators in the relationships between beliefs about emotions and symptoms of emotional disorders and well-being. The present findings are discussed in accordance with the relevant literature.