Emotion regulation, negative self-evaluation, and social anxiety symptoms: The mediating role of depressive symptoms

Due to the high rate of comorbidity of social anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder, this study aimed to examine the mediation effect of depressive symptoms on the association between emotion regulation, negative self-evaluation, and social anxiety symptoms. The population of this study consisted of all students of the Faculty of Architecture, Islamic Azad University. The sample included 284 of the students based on convenience sampling method. Depressive symptoms were measured by Beck Depression Inventory-II (Beck et al., 1996), emotion regulation was measured by Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski et al., Personality and Individual Differences, 30(8), 1311-1327, 2001), social anxiety was measured by Social Phobia Inventory (Connor et al., Depression and Anxiety, 14(2), 137-140, 2001) and, negative self-evaluation was measured by Consequences of Negative Social Events Questionnaire (Wilson and Rapee, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 19(3), 245-274, 2005). We used Path analysis to test the significance of mediation. The result of the study indicated that the direct and indirect effects of all maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, negative self-evaluation and evaluation from the others', and depression components on social anxiety symptoms components was positive and significant.From these results, we conclude that high levels of depressive symptoms accompanied by high levels of maladaptive emotion regulation and high levels of negative self-evaluation can lead to increased social anxiety symptoms. The theoretical and practical issues have been discussed.