Pathways from schema domains to existential anxiety: The mediatory role of psychological flexibility

The current research aimed to investigate the mediating role of psychological flexibility in the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and existential anxieties. The study included 404 voluntary participants, consisting of 165 males and 239 females. Participants completed a Demographic Information Form, Young Schema Questionnaire Short Form-3, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (2), and Existential Anxiety Scale. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and PROCESS Macro Model 4 were used for the analysis of mediating variable models. According to the results obtained from the analyses, it was found that psychological flexibility played a mediating role in the relationships between all sub-dimensions of schema domains, including abandonment-rejection, impaired autonomy, damaged boundaries, other-directedness, and hypervigilance schema domains, and concerns related to meaninglessness, death, isolation, and freedom. However, there was no mediating role of psychological flexibility found between the impaired autonomy schema domain and death anxiety. Additionally, a significant relationship was observed between age and psychological flexibility, isolation anxiety, and freedom anxiety. The findings were discussed in the context of the literature, and recommendations for future research and clinical applications were provided while considering the limitations of the study.