Emotion Regulation and Self-Efficacy: The Mediating Role of Emotional Stability and Extraversion in Adolescence

Abstract

The feeling of emotional self-efficacy helps people understand how to handle positive and negative emotions. Emotion regulation is the process that helps people control their emotions so that they can adapt to the demands of the environment. This study has a twofold aim. First, it examines the relationships among emotion regulation, the personality traits of extraversion and emotional stability, and the feeling of emotional self-efficacy for positive and negative emotions in an adolescent population. Second, it examines the mediating role of personality traits (extraversion and emotional stability) in the relationship between emotion regulation and emotional self-efficacy for positive and negative emotions. The participants were 703 adolescents (49.9% male and 50.1% female) aged between 15 and 18 years (M = 15.86, SD = 0.30). Significant relationships were observed among emotion regulation, the personality traits of extraversion and emotional stability, and emotional self-efficacy for positive and negative emotions. The structural equation model confirmed the direct link between emotion regulation and emotional self-efficacy and mediation by the personality traits of extraversion and emotional stability. This study confirms that emotional self-efficacy is connected to the emotion regulation strategies that adolescents use. Effective emotion regulation encourages self-perception and emotional coping. The results are discussed in connection to previous research.