The Relationship of Social Support and Psychological Capital with Empowerment of Female Heads of Households: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation

Female heads of households (FHHs) experience more anxiety and stress which result in many mood swings that can affect their belief in their capabilities and decrease the feeling of enjoyment of life.

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between social support and psychological capital with the empowerment of female heads of households through the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation.

The current descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on all female heads of households referring to Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation and the Welfare Department of Yasuj city, of whom, 250 were selected as the sample using convenience sampling method. The psychological empowerment instrument, the psychological capital questionnaire, the multidimensional scale of perceived social support, and the cognitive emotion regulation Questionnaire (short form) were used to collect data. Data were then analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and path analysis in SPSS and AMOS 25.

The results showed that there was a positive correlation between empowerment and social support (r=0.29), psychological capital (r=0.44), and adaptive emotion regulation (r=0.36). Moreover, there was a negative correlation between empowerment and maladaptive emotion regulation (r=-0.35). The results showed that the indirect correlation of social support and psychological capital with the empowerment of the FHHs was significant through the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation (P<0.001).

The proposed model had a good fit. Empowering FHHs and improving their social support and psychological capital will enable them to deal with stress resulting from daily problems.