Investigation of the mediator role of emotion regulation strategies and alexithymia in the relationship between perceived parental attitudes and social anxiety symptoms in university students

The aim of the current study was to investigate the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies and alexithymia on the relationship of perceived parental attitude with social anxiety symptoms in university students. The sample of the study consisted of 388 university students who continue their education at the undergraduate and graduate level in Turkey. Demographic Information Form, Young Parenting Scale, Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Toronto Alexithymia Scale and Emotion Regulation Scale were administered to the participants. In order to test the hypotheses of the study and find an answer to the research question; correlation analysis, one-way multi-factor analysis of variance (MANOVA) and mediator variable analysis were conducted. As a result of the correlation analysis, relationships at various levels were found between the variables of the study. As a result of the variance analysis; it was observed that perceived parental attitude, alexithymia, and emotion regulation strategies differ in groups with varying levels of social anxiety. The mediator role of alexithymia on the relationship between perceived parental attitude and social anxiety symptoms was found to be significant for both parents. While the mediating role of suppression, one of the emotion regulation strategies, was found to be significant on the relationship between perceived maternal attitude and social anxiety symptoms; the mediating role of both cognitive re-evaluation and suppression strategies on the relationship between paternal attitude and social anxiety symptoms was found to be significant. The findings of the current study were discussed in the light of the literature. Finally, the clinical implications and limitations of the study and recommendations for future studies were included.