Family Functioning and Social Competence during Emerging Adulthood: The Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation Strategies

Introduction: The complex nature of emotions and domain-specificity of them, reflects the importance of emotion regulation in the context of family relationships and social roles. This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between family functioning and students' social competence. Method: The design of this study was descriptive-correlational in which the structural equation modeling method was used to analyze the data. For this purpose, ۳۱۵ undergraduate students of the Universities of Birjand, who were selected by convenience sampling method, completed Family Assessment Device (FAD), Social Competence Questionnaire (SCQ), and Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies (HFERST). Results: Data analysis was done through structural equation modeling and using SPSS.۲۷ and AMOS.۲۴ software. The results showed that the prediction model of the social competence has a good fit (۲/df=۲.۹۶, GFI=۰.۹۲, CFI=۰.۹۰, IFI=۰.۹۰, RMSEA=۰.۰۸). The direct effect of overall family functioning (β=۰.۳۳۷) and adaptive emotion regulation strategies (β=۰.۵۰۱) on social competence was positively significant. Non-adaptive emotion regulation strategies had a significant and negative direct effect on social competence (β=۰.۱۷۷). The indirect effect of overall family functioning through adaptive strategies (β=۰.۱۸۳) was positive and significant, but through non-adaptive emotion regulation strategies, it was not significant (β=۰.۰۱). The explained variance of social competence was equal to R۲=۰.۵۷. Conclusion: The results of this study show that a safe psychological environment in the family, improves the level of social competence of individuals by promoting adaptive emotion regulation strategies. Therefore, training various emotion regulation strategies can increase social health among university students.