Relationships between interpersonal emotion regulation strategies, coping styles, and anxiety and depression

Depression and anxiety are the psychopathologies that are seen most commonly worldwide that cause many psychological (rumination, avoidance, anhedonia, etc.) and physical symptoms (psychosomatic pains, breathing difficulties, endocrine system disorders, etc.). Previous studies have shown that depression and anxiety symptoms are not observed in every person who has been exposed to similar unpleasant life events, depression and anxiety levels have shown that people use stress coping styles (self-confident approach, optimistic approach, submissive approach, desperate approach, and seeking social support approach) and interpersonal emotion regulation they benefit from. It has shown that it differs according to its strategies (enhancing positive affect, soothing, perspective-taking, and social modeling). In the current study, data were collected from a total of 479 participants (324 women, 155 men) aged 18-68 years, by using the Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Scale (IERQ), Ways of Coping Inventory (WCI), Beck Anxiety Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory in order to determine the relationship between interpersonal emotion regulation strategies and coping styles with stress and depression and anxiety levels. In order to determine the relationship between the variables, correlation analysis was conducted and multivariate analysis of variance were conducted to determine the changes in interpersonal emotion regulation strategies and coping styles according to anxiety and depression levels. Research findings showed that people with high levels of depression and anxiety use emotion-focused approaches more in coping with stress, and people with high anxiety levels use perspective taking, social modeling and shooting strategies more in emotion regulation. The findings have been discussed within the framework of the relevant literature, the limitations of the current study were stated and suggestions were proposed for future research.