The Relationship Between Emotional Availability of Parents and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation in Emerging Adults: The Mediating Role of Meta-emotion and Mood

Abstract

Effectively regulating emotions is a lifelong developmental task for every individual. In the course of an individual's development, effective emotion regulation is deeply intertwined with relationships and emotions. This study aims to explore how parental emotional availability, meta-emotion, and mood influence emotion regulation difficulties among emerging adults. In addition, this study also intends to examine the mediating role of meta-emotion and mood in the relationship between the emotional availability of parents and difficulties in emotion regulation. The participants comprised 882 emerging adults (58.2% female, 41.8% male) between the ages of 18 and 25. Hierarchical regression and bootstrapping analyses were employed to validate the research hypotheses, utilizing various psychological measurement instruments. Results indicated that positive meta-emotion, pleasant mood, and parental emotional availability negatively predicted emotion regulation difficulties, whereas negative meta-emotion and unpleasant mood positively predicted them. Additionally, it was revealed that positive meta-emotion, negative meta-emotion, pleasant mood, and unpleasant mood had a mediating role in the relationship between the emotional availability of both mothers and fathers and difficulties in emotional regulation. These findings were discussed in light of relevant literature, with implications for future research and practical applications.