Structural Model of Direct and Indirect Role of Early Maladaptive Schemas on Social Anxiety with Mediation of Emotion Regulation

Aim and Social anxiety disorder is the most common type of anxiety disorders that affects the performance and social communication. Among the factors influencing the development and maintenance of the disorder, is early maladaptive schemas and deficits in emotion regulation. The present study aimed to present the structural model of direct and indirect role of early maladaptive schemas on social anxiety with mediation of emotion regulation.
Methods and Materials: In this descriptive-correlation research, the study population consisted of all students of University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran, that among them, 300 students were selected using multistage cluster sampling technique. Young maladaptive schemas, Kanverd social anxiety and Gross and John emotion regulation questionnaires were used to the collect data. The data were analyzed using path analysis method.
Findings: Disconnection/rejection, impaired autonomy and performance, impaired limitation, other-directedness and over vigilance/inhibition schemas, due to emotional regulation, had positive and significant effects on social anxiety symptoms (P The findings indicated that not only social anxiety was affected by bad-functioning in maladaptive schemas but also the symptoms of this disorder was aggravated by emotion disregulation; so that the negative effects of defective cognition on social anxiety were increased through defective performance of emotional regulation and aggravated the symptoms of social anxiety.