The role of personality traits and cognitive development in predicting emotion regulation strategies

People regulate their emotions in different ways which emanates from their individual differences. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality factors and cognitive development levels with emotion regulation strategies. 381 (192 females, 189 males) students from Hakim Sabzevari University were selected in a cluster sampling method and they filled out ERQ, NEO-FFI and SPBI questionnaires. Correlation coefficient and multiple regression was used for data analysis. Correlation analysis showed that reappraisal have significant positive relation with extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, also suppression have positive significant relation with neuroticism and conservative thinking and negative significant relation with extraversion, openness and conscientiousness. The results of regression analysis indicated that conscientiousness, formal thinking and Collectivistic thinking could predict 12% of reappraisal variance. Results also indicated that extraversion, openness and dialectical thinking could predict 11% of suppression variance. Overall the present findings indicate that individual’s personality traits and cognitive development can predict their emotion regulation capability.
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