The mediatory role of cognitive emotion regulation and emotional reactivity in the relationship between eating behaviors and irrational beliefs

The aim of the study is to examine the mediating role of emotional reactivity and cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between irrational beliefs and eating behaviors among young adults aged 18-40. The research sample consists of a total of 282 people, 216 women and 66 men, living in Turkey. Research data was collected via Google Forms. "Sociodemographic Information Form" to obtain demographic information of the participants, " General Attitudes and Beliefs Scale's shortened version" to determine irrational beliefs, "Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire" to determine eating behaviors, "Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire" to determine emotional regulation strategies, emotional reactivity. "Emotional Reactivity Scale" was used to measure. All statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS version 25.0. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between the total and subscale scores of the scale. To determine whether there are significant differences between the total and subscale scores of the scale and participants demographic and various other variables, the Independent Samples t-test, a parametric test for two-group variables, was applied; the One-Way ANOVA test was applied for variables with three or more groups. In cases where significant differences were found between groups, the Bonferroni test, one of the post-hoc tests, was chosen to determine between which groups the significance occurred. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. According to the findings of the study, there is no mediating role of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between irrational beliefs and eating behaviors. In the relationships between irrational beliefs and emotional eating, and between irrational beliefs and external eating, both emotional reactivity and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies have been found to play a mediating role. In the relationship between irrational beliefs and restrained eating, no mediating role of emotional reactivity and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies has been found. The findings have been discussed in light of the relevant literature.