The Mediating Role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies and Social Self-efficacy in the Relationship between Attachment Styles and Social Anxiety in Female High School Students

The present study examines the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies and social self-efficacy in the relationship between attachment styles and social anxiety in female high school students. The statistical population includes all female high school students in Ilam, i.e., 3822 individuals who were studying in the academic year 2020-2021. Among these students, 360 students were selected by multistage cluster sampling method. The method of the study is descriptive-correlative and its purpose is basic. The path analysis method and SPSS-24 and Amos-24 software were used to analyze the research data. The instruments used in this study are: Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A), Adult Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ), Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire- Short form (CERQ-S) and Self-Efficacy for Social Situations (SESS). The path analysis results showed that cognitive emotion regulation strategies and social self-efficacy mediated the relationship between attachment styles and social anxiety. On the other hand, the results showed that the variables of the model were able to explain 0.38 of the variance of social anxiety in the present study. The results of the present study suggest that attachment style can predict the level of social anxiety by influencing cognitive emotion regulation strategies and social self-efficacy.