Discriminant analysis of rumination, pathological anxiety and cognitive emotional regulation strategies based on positive and negative affectivity levels

Affectivity refers to the individuals’ mood and states of mind that is experienced as positive or negative emotions. The aim of this study was to examine the pathological anxiety, rumination, and cognitive emotional regulation strategies within the positive and negative affectivity levels. For this purpose, 287 male and female students of Urmieh University were selected through multistage cluster sampling method. Following initial analysis of the results, 74 of the subjects were designated based on the end distribution of scores (Z standard) on a scale of positive and negative affectivity. Lastly, to test the hypothesis of the study, participants were evaluated for pathological anxiety, rumination and cognitive emotional regulation strategies. The data were analyzed using uni-variate and multivariate variance and follow-up tests. The results showed that pathological anxiety and rumination are related with high levels of negative affectivity and low level of positive affectivity. Further, the results indicated that individuals with high negative affectivity (HNA) had higher scores in negative emotional regulation strategies and subjects with high positive affectivity (HPA) obtained higher scores in positive emotional regulation strategies. It seems that the positive and negative aspects of emotions are the predisposing factors of psychopathology through the mediation of pathological anxiety, rumination and cognitive emotional regulation strategies.