The mediating role of automatic thoughts in the relationship between university students' perceived parent attitudes and emotion regulation skills

The aim of this study is to examine whether there is a significant relationship between university students' perceived parental attitudes and their emotion regulation skills, and whether their automatic thoughts have a mediating role in this relationship. The study was carried out with 450 students continuing their education at state and foundation universities operating in Istanbul. Personal information form, "Parental Attitude Scale", "Emotion Regulation Skills Scale" and "Automatic Thoughts Scale" were used to collect data in the study conducted in the relational screening model. SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 23.0 programs were used in the analysis of the data. The findings obtained as a result of the analyzes show that automatic thoughts have a partial mediating role in the relationship between democratic and authoritarian attitudes and emotion regulation skills, which are among the parental attitudes perceived by university students, and that automatic thoughts have a full mediating role in the relationship between protective parental attitudes and emotion regulation skills. The findings of the study were discussed in relation to the literature and suggestions were made to shed light on future research.