Reflective Functioning and Social Trust: The Mediating Role of Emotion Dysregulation

The aim of the current study was to investigate the mediational role of emotion dysregulation in the association between reflective functioning and social trust.

This study was descriptive-correlational and its statistical population included university students across 20 provinces of Iran. Our sample was composed of 441 university students (291 female, 150 male), who were recruited through convenience sampling. All participants completed a battery of self-report measures, including the Social Trust Questionnaire (Saffarinia & Sharif, 1392), Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (Fonagy et al., 2016), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale–Short Form (Kaufman et al., 2016). Descriptive analyses were conducted using SPSS v26, and mediation testing was carried out using PROCESS macro v4.1.

Correlation analyses demonstrated significant associations between all variables (p<.001). The total effect of reflective functioning on social trust was significant, as well as the direct effect of reflective functioning on emotion dysregulation, and the direct effect of emotion dysregulation on social trust (p<.001). When emotion dysregulation was entered as a mediator, the direct effect of reflective functioning on social trust did not remain significant (p>.01), while the indirect effect mediated by emotion dysregulation was significant (CI: -.061 to -.192).

Our findings support the role of self-focused reflective functioning in the development of social mistrust. Unawareness of the mental states of oneself leads to intrapersonal and interpersonal dysregulation of emotions. In turn, belief in the untrustworthiness of others may stem from the projection of internal feelings or emotion dysregulation.