Attachment, emotion regulation, and burnout among university students: a mediational hypothesis

Abstract

The prevalence of burnout among university students is increasing with consequences for their academic performance. Attachment theory, as a theory of affect regulation and interpersonal relationships, may be an important framework that helps to explain why some students experience academic burnout while others do not. This study aims to examine the links between attachment orientations and levels of academic burnout and to explore the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies in this relationship. This cross-sectional study included 205 students from different Portuguese universities. Multiple mediation models conducted in PROCESS showed that both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were associated with higher levels of personal and academic-related burnout. Additionally, rumination and suppression mediated the association between attachment anxiety and burnout while putting into perspective and suppression mediated the association between attachment avoidance and burnout. Results are discussed in the light of attachment theory and clinical implications are provided to prevent academic-related burnout.

Keywords:

• Attachment
• emotion regulation
• academic burnout
• university students

Ethics statement

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of CIP-UAL (Reference 09-2021). All participants provided an informed consent prior participation.

Author contributions

All authors concepted and designed the study; Hugo Marques collected the data; Hugo Marques and Tânia Brandão analysed and interpreted the data; Tânia drafted the manuscript; all authors revised the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Reference: UIDP/04345/2020).