The Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation in the Relationship between Attachment Injuries and Lovability (Descriptive study)

The needs of love and attachment are one of the main characteristics and basic needs of humans from childhood to old age (4). In fact, one of the most important relationships that people create throughout their lives and expect to satisfy their psychological needs and the need to be loved is love. Love can be seen as one of the manifestations of attachment, and attachment styles provide a stable pattern for processing intra-personal and interpersonal relationships in a transformative life, and it is a meaningful predictor for the quality of a person's future relationships and is involved in the growth and preservation of intimacy (31). Considering the basic role of attachment and its importance in various social dimensions, mental and physical health, people who suffer from attachment injuries will experience more problems in creating a feeling of intimacy and love and the process of seeking order for excitement. Also, attachment styles are one of the most important conceptual frameworks and the basis of a capacity to regulate emotions and have an inextricable link with each other (14). In addition, research indicates that emotion regulation strategies can play a role in increasing people's lovability and intimate relationships (27). In this research, in addition to the role of attachment injuries, other variables such as lovability have been identified. Considering the role of lovability on the durability and effectiveness of relationships and that lovability is one of the dimensions of self-esteem and one of the most basic beliefs of a person about himself, conducting this research in order to know the factors influencing lovability is of special importance. and identifying these factors is necessary to prevent adverse consequences. Also, considering the mediating variable of emotion regulation in this research as an effective factor in the relationship between attachment injuries and lovability and taking into account the fact that until now emotion regulation has not been investigated as a mediating role in the relationship between these two variables. The aim of this research is to determine the mediating role of Emotion regulation in the relationship between attachment injuries and lovability. Being lovability plays a significant role in the durability and effectiveness of relationships. And identifying the factors affecting lovability is important to prevent adverse consequences. Hence, this research was conducted with the aim of determining the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between attachment injuries and lovability.

The current research was descriptive and correlational. In this research, the correlational design was used to investigate the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between attachment injuries and love acceptance. The statistical population of the research was made up of undergraduate and master's degree students in management and law of Valiasr Complex of South Tehran Azad University who were studying in 2021-2022. The sample size is based on Klein's opinion (27) that 2.5 to 5 people are suitable for each item, and considering the total of 35 items in the research questionnaires and taking into account the fact that a minimum sample size of 200 people is defensible, in First, were using a staged sampling method and considering the possibility of some questionnaires being distorted, 260 people were selected. In order to control the order effect and fatigue, the questionnaires were presented in different orders. and responded to the lovability scale (O'Brien and Epstein, 1988), adult attachment questionnaire (Besharat, 2012) and emotion regulation questionnaire (Gross and John, 2003). The conditions for entering the research were: not having a history of mental illness, not using medication due to psychiatric illness, and having consent to participate in the research. Correlation test and path analysis were used to analyze the research data.

Path analysis test was used to test the research hypothesis that "emotional regulation plays a mediating role in the relationship between attachment injuries and lovability". The results of the path analysis test showed that 18% of the variance of emotion regulation can be explained through attachment damage (avoidant and ambivalent). Also, attachment injuries and emotion regulation have the ability to explain 30% of the variance of lovability. The results of this research showed that attachment injuries (ambivalent and avoidant) has a significant negative relationship with emotion regulation and lovability (P<0.001). Also, emotion regulation has a significant positive relationship with lovability (P< 0.001). The results of the path analysis test also showed that emotion regulation has a significant indirect effect (mediating role) on the relationship between attachment injuries (avoidant and ambivalent) and lovability (P<0.001), which supports the research hypothesis.

The results of this research showed that there is a significant negative relationship between attachment injuries and emotional regulation and lovability. In explaining this finding, it can be said that in accordance with cognitive - experiential self-theory(2), a person's evaluation of the level of lovability is formed in early childhood experiences and in the context of the family, and attachment injuries are the result of improper relationship with parents and the feeling of being rejected and unloved. People who feel rejected have low levels of lovability and defects in the quality of care they give to others (2). Also, those who suffer from attachment injuries, under the influence of the unhealthy quality of the caregiver-child relationship since childhood, use uncompromising emotion regulation strategies to regulate their emotions in intra-personal and interpersonal relationships (13).The results of this research showed that emotion regulation plays a mediating role in the relationship between attachment injuries and lovability. In explaining this finding, it can be said that the primary parent-child relationship is the most important element that strongly affects the development of basic emotion regulation skills (21). Based on this, people with attachment injuries use suppression in developing emotion regulation skills to overcome negative situations. Also, these people experience their self-esteem at a low level and are less lovability (25). On the other hand, when a person uses re-evaluation, he can be at a high level in terms of his competence and dignity, express his feelings constructively to his life partner, and lovability at a higher level (26).According to the results, when people are first taught and then people can use the discipline of adaptive emotion seeking with proper management, This makes the person feel valued and experience a higher level of lovability in their relationships, reducing the negative impact of attachment injuries(4).Therefore, it can be concluded that by increasing the emotion regulation capacity and using the emotion regulation skills correctly, the impact of attachment injuries in creating a low level of lovability can be reduced to some extent. Also, considering the role of lovability on the durability and effectiveness of relationships, it is suggested to provide mental health services in the form of training sessions with an emphasis on the role of appropriate emotion regulation strategies to reduce and prevent attachment injuries in relationships with the focus of increasing lovability and Managing emotions helped.