Secure attachment, well-being, and psychopathology: The mediation role of interpersonal emotion regulation

Secure attachment refers to the capability to establish healthy and secure relationships along with the capability to act autonomously. Extensive research has consistently documented the advantages of secure attachment in mental health outcomes, including well-being and psychopathology. People with secure attachment tend to employ adaptive emotion regulation strategies in dealing with stressful situations. While intrapersonal emotion regulation has been researched vastly in the literature, the interpersonal aspect needs to be addressed since emotion regulation is learned by people through their interactions with others. In the present study, we aimed to examine the mediating role of interpersonal emotion regulation (i.e.," enhancing positive affect, perspective taking, soothing and social modeling") in the relationship between secure attachment and well-being as well as secure attachment and psychopathology. The study sample consisted of 282 participants through convenience sampling. This study used the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale, The Brief Symptom Inventory, the Relationships Scales Questionnaire, and the Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. To test the hypotheses, mediation analyses were conducted. The findings revealed that utilizing a perspective-taking strategy was associated with increased well-being while using a soothing strategy was linked with decreased well-being. In addition, enhancing positive affect mediates the relationship between secure attachment and well-being. The mediating role of interpersonal emotion regulation between secure attachment and psychopathology was insignificant. The findings suggest that the link between enhancing positive affect is an adaptive strategy that securely attached individuals utilize to increase their well-being.