Examining of interpersonal emotion regulation in university students with obsessive compulsive or social anxiety symptoms

Most of the studies related to emotion regulation focus on the intrapersonal aspect of emotion regulation. However, recent studies started to focus on examining the social aspects of emotion regulation. The aim of this current study was to investigate obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) within the scope of social aspects of emotion regulation. The University Students enrolled in different universities in Turkey were recruited. This study was composed of two parts. The goal of the first study was to determine the high and low levels of OCD and SAD groups. The purpose of the second study was to understand how groups regulate their emotions that emerged after the scenario was presented. At the end of the first study, a significant difference was obtained between the groups in the enhancing positive emotion sub-field of the interpersonal emotion regulation questionnaire. The result showed that students with high-level of OCD symptoms had less need to turn to other people to increase their positive emotions, and high-level OCD and SAD symptoms stated that they had less satisfaction and pleasure from communicating with other people about their positive emotions. In the second study, the scenarios triggering negative emotions were presented. The findings showed that those in the high OCD group tried to regulate their emotions by suppressing more, while those in the high SAD group struggled with their emotions by suppressing more and using less cognitive reappraisal. On the other hand, those with high SAD stated that they needed less perspective-taking from others. In other words, it was found that high-SAD group needed less to hear that the situation was not bad as they thought and know that the viii other people who have been experiencing more. The results were discussed in terms of attachment theory, parenting styles, culture, and transdiagnostic views. Keywords Emotion Regulation, Interpersonal Emotion Regulation, Obsessive-Compulsive symptoms, Social Anxiety Symptoms