A pathway from neuroticism to depression: examining the role of emotion regulation

Abstract

We examined whether the relation between neuroticism and the severity of depressive symptoms is mediated by emotion regulation. At the same time, we examined whether the type of emotion regulation strategy (maladaptive vs. adaptive) moderates the effects of neuroticism on depression severity. Community participants (N = 533; 235 women and 298 men) completed a set of questionnaires over the Internet. We used structural equation modeling to examine the mediational role of emotion regulation in linking neuroticism and the levels of depressive symptoms. The well-documented relation between neuroticism and depression is mediated by individual differences in the use of different emotion regulation strategies. More specifically, the use of maladaptive forms of emotion regulation, but not reappraisal, fully mediated the association between neuroticism and the severity of depressive symptoms.

Keywords:

• emotion regulation
• neuroticism
• depression
• rumination
• suppression
• reappraisal

Notes

1. Of note, a model in which the residuals for the maladaptive emotion regulation and reappraisal were not specified to covary also exhibited an excellent fit, χ²(72, N=533) = 144.05, p<.001, CFI=.97, RMSEA=.04 (90% CI=.03–.05), PCFI=.76, and the results on individual parameters remained the same.

2. Given the significant gender differences in the levels of neuroticism and general tendencies to use cognitive reappraisal, we examined gender differences in the relations among neuroticism, ER, and depressive symptoms. The fully constrained model provided an excellent fit, χ²(142, N=533) = 156.07, ns, CFI=.99, RMSEA=.01 (90% CI=.00–.03), PCFI=.83, and was not worse than the models in which parameters were freely estimated between male and female. The results, thus, indicate that the associations among the variables did not significantly differ between men and women.