Early maladaptive schemas and somatization: The mediating role of interpersonal emotion regulation

Objective: This study examines the mediating role of interpersonal emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and somatization. Method: The sample for the study consists of 1112 individuals aged 18-45. Participants were reached through a convenience sampling method, and data were collected using an online survey. The participants completed the following measures: Informed Consent Form, Sociodemographic Information Form, Young Schema Questionnaire Short Form-3 (YSQ-SF3), Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (IERQ), and Somatization Scale. The data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0. Results: The analyses revealed that the soothing emotion regulation strategy and early maladaptive schema domains positively predicted somatization. Conversely, perspective-taking emotion regulation was found to negatively predict somatization. Parallel mediation analysis conducted with Process Macro v4.2 Model 4 showed that the soothing, perspective-taking, and enhancing positive affect strategies had a mediating role in the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and somatization. However, the social modeling emotion regulation strategy did not mediate the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and somatization. Conclusion: The study explored the relationships among early maladaptive schemas, interpersonal emotion regulation, and somatization, and found statistically significant results. The use of the soothing emotion regulation strategy played a role in strengthening the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and somatization, while the use of perspective-taking and positive emotion enhancement strategies weakened this relationship.