Emotion Regulation Of Social Anxiety Among College Students And The Effect Of Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy

Social anxiety is a common phenomenon among college students and may affect interpersonal interaction.In recent years,most researches investigated the relationship between emotion regulation strategies and negative mood.With more and more attention on the cognitive and social process of emotion,researchers focused on the cognitive emotion regulation and the interpersonal emotion regulation.The effect of cognitive behavioral group therapy to social anxiety disorder has been proved in most researches,and the mediating mechanism of cognitive behavioral group therapy became an important topic.Therefore,study 1 of the present research will explore the relationship between emotion regulation and social anxiety.Study 2 will exam whether cognitive behavioral group therapy can relieve social anxiety among college students.Study 2 will further explore emotion regulation as the mediator in cognitive behavioral group therapy.Results:(1)Study 1: There are positive correlations between negative cognitive emotion regulation and social anxiety(P<0.01).Meanwhile,there are positive correlations between interpersonal emotion regulation and social anxiety(P<0.05,P<0.01).On the contrary,there are negative correlations between positive reappraisal and social anxiety.Catastrophizing,self-blaming,positive reappraisal and social modeling are effective predictors of social anxiety.(2)Study 2: The maladaptive beliefs of social anxiety are catastrophizing,self-blaming,thought reading and labeling.Cognitive behavioral group therapy can evidently reduce social anxiety,catastrophizing and self-blaming,but had no significant effect on social modeling and positive reappraisal.Conclusions:(1)Negative cognitive emotion regulations(self-blaming,rumination,catastrophizing,and blaming-others)have positive correlations with social anxiety,and there are positive correlations between interpersonal emotion regulation and social anxiety.Contrarily there are negative correlations between positive reappraisal and social anxiety.(2)Catastrophizing,self-blaming,positive reappraisal and social modeling are effective predictors of social anxiety.(3)Cognitive behavioral group therapy can evidently reduce social anxiety.(4)Cognitive behavioral group therapy can alleviate the use of negative regulations such as catastrophizing and self-blaming.