Relationship between psychological basic needs satisfaction at school and students’ emotional well-being: the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation

Adolescents spend most of their daytime in school. Thus, schools can likely influence adolescents’ basic psychological needs and their behaviors related to need satisfaction. Researchs has confirmed the effectiveness of basic psychological needs on the promotion of well-being, but the question of this research is whether the strategies of cognitive emotion regulation can affect the relationship between basic psychological needs in school and emotional well-being?

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychological basic needs satisfaction at school and students’ emotional well-being with the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation.

This study was a correlational study. The statistical population of this study included all second grade high school students from Shiraz city in the academic year 1397-98. Participants were 487 students (252 girls and 235 boys) selected through the random cluster sampling method. They completed adolescent students’ basic psychological needs at school scale (Tian et al., 2014), emotional well-being scale (Keyes & Magyar-Moe, 2003), and cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (Garnefski & Kraiij, 2006).

The findings using structural equation modeling showed that satisfaction of need for competence and need for relatedness could positively, and the need for autonomy could negatively and statistically significant predict cognitive emotion regulation, and cognitive emotion regulation was a significant predictor of emotional well-being. Moreover, the mediation role of cognitive emotion regulation in the relationship between psychological basic needs satisfaction at school and students’ emotional well-being was confirmed.

According to the research findings, it can be concluded that satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of students at school and use of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies can improve their emotional well-being.