The role of early maladaptive schemas and difficulties in emotion regulation in student's anxiety

Early maladaptive schemas and difficulties in emotion regulation are separately considered as key components in characterization of disorders in several psychopathological models. The aim of this study is to survey the role of early maladaptive schemas as a cognitive factor and difficulties in emotion regulation as an emotional factor in students’ anxiety. Sample included 108 female and 92 male students of Persian Gulf University who were given the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale، Short Form of Schema Questionnaire and Beck Anxiety Inventory. The results of stepwise multiple regression on difficulties in emotion regulation showed that limited emotion regulation strategies was the most important variable and impulse control difficulties proved to be the second variable. The results on early maladaptive schemas also extracted two schemas of vulnerability to illness and abandonment in terms of importance. In sum، findings on total variables suggested three variables of vulnerability to illness maladaptive schema، abandonment maladaptive schema، and impulse control difficulties in respect of importance. According to the results of this research، cognitive and emotional factors have simultaneous roles in prediction of students’ anxiety. The results have been explained on the basis of cognitive/emotional theory of anxiety.