Canonical Analysis of the Association Between Spiritual Attitude and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies Among the Students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences

Emotional intelligence is one of the psychological dimensions which plays an important role in emotional regulation. In this study the role of spiritual orientation in predicting cognitive emotion regulation strategies among the students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences was investigated.
This was a cross-sectional study conducted on 250 students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences selected through simple random sampling in 2015. Data were collected using the cognitive emotion regulation strategies questionnaire (Garnfsky et al., 2002) and the spiritual intelligence questionnaire (Shahidi and Farajnia, 1391) and analyzed using SPSS 23, the statistical tests being the Pearson correlation coefficient and canonical correlation.
Results. A statistically significant positive association was found between spiritual attitude and emotion regulation. Based on canonical correlation, of the two canonical roots only root 1 was significantly associated with emotion regulation (p= 0.03; f, 0.90), explaining 7% of the emotion regulation variance. The second root had no statistically significant correlation with emotion regulation.
The deeper the religious beliefs of a person, the higher he will value himself and the world around. Consequently, he will have more satisfaction in life and, therefore, can better control his emotions and feelings.