Latent profile analysis of the patterns of difficulties in emotion regulation and its associations with consideration of future consequences and anticipated regret

Present study aimed to analyze latent profile of the patterns of difficulties in emotion regulation and its associations with consideration of future consequences and anticipated regret. In a cross-sectional survey, 380 people were selected through convenience sampling from adult population of Kermanshah. Data were collected through the short form of difficulties in emotion regulation scale, consideration of future consequences scale, and regret-based decision-making style scale. The data were analyzed based on various methods including latent profile analysis by SPSS and Mplus software. Latent profile analysis showed that a model with three profiles has the best fit with the data. From these three profiles, the first profile belonged to those who were in the optimal state in terms of emotion regulation. The second profile belonged to those who had mild problems in emotion regulation, and the third profile belonged to those who suffered from severe problems in emotion regulation. Belonging to the first profile was associated with lower scores in the anticipated regret and consideration of immediate consequences compared to the second and third profiles. Having different levels of emotional regulation difficulties is associated with varying degrees of consideration of future consequences and anticipated regrets, and the extracted profiles can be used to predict decision-making patterns and provide tailored interventions for each group of people.