Maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and social anxiety: the mediating role of alexithymia

Given the high prevalence of social anxiety and its importance in people under 18 year, The main objective of this study was to investigate the role of alexithymia mediated into the relationship between maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and social anxiety. In this study, 180 high school female students who were selected using Multi stage cluster sampling, formed the research sample. Participants completed a questionnaire Connor social anxiety(Spin), cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire and Toronto-20 Alexithymia Scale. The results showed that adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, Respectively, had positive and negative correlations with social anxiety. Alexithymia had also positively correlated with social anxiety. Results of regression analysis showed that alexithymia can be have a mediator role in relationship between maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and social anxiety. According to the results, it appears that maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, mediated by alexithymia, can better predict the social anxiety.