The impact of early emotional positive experiences and self-compassionate abilities on depressive symptomatology: The mediator role of different emotional regulation processes
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| Main Author: | |
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| Publication Date: | 2019 |
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | por |
| Source: | Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP) |
| Download full: | https://doi.org/10.31211/rpics.2019.5.1.101 |
Summary: | Background: The scientific literature supports that early emotional memories of warmth and safeness and self-compassionate abilities play a central role in adaptive emotion regulation and mental health. Further, it is pointed out that distinct mechanisms may mediate the association between emotional experiences and depressive symptoms. Method and Aim: Participants were 389 men and women from the general population, aged between 18 and 50 years old (M = 31.84; SD= 10.97), who completed a set of self-report measures of early memories of warmth and safeness, self-compassion, social safeness, experiential avoidance, and depression symptoms. The current study examined an integrative model that hypothesized that the association between early affiliative memories and self-compassionate abilities with depressive symptomatology is mediated by social closeness and experiential avoidance. Results: Results confirmed the adequacy of the tested model, which accounted for 34% of the depressive symptoms variance. Results revealed that early emotional memories of warmth and safeness and self-compassionate abilities were associated with increased depressive symptoms, through higher feelings of safeness and closeness within the social arena and lower adoption of maladaptive experiential avoidance strategies. Conclusions: These findings contribute to the clarification of the effect of early positive emotional memories and self-compassionate abilities on mental health. Moreover, present data highlight the importance of affiliative and acceptance competences as emotion regulation mediational mechanisms to promote mental health. |