The Relation Between Schemas, Emotion Regulation and Depression

RM-215-218

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2013), depression is often experienced for the first time during the college years. Moreover, results of the 2013 American College Health Association (ACHA) National College Health Assessment (NCHA) revealed that 31.8% of college students reported that their experience of depression in the last 12 months made it difficult to function in their daily lives. Cognitive models suggest that psychopathology is the result of the interaction of dysfunctional views of self and others and life events. It has been suggested that mood disorders such as depression may be linked to early maladaptive schemas (EMS; Young, Klosko & Weishaar, 2004) defined as negative cognitive biases, developed in response to dysfunctional developmental experiences, reinforced across the lifespan and affect perceptions of life events (Young et al., 2004). Emotional regulation (ER) has also been shown to be related to depression (Yoon, Maltby & Joormann, 2013). Gross and John (2003) defined two prominent ER strategies: 1) Cognitive Reappraisal (changing the emotional impact by reframing the meaning of the situation) and 2) Expressive Suppression (changing the emotional impact by inhibiting the experience of emotion). Therefore, based on the current literature we hypothesized that the EMS of abandonment/instability, vulnerability to harm and defectiveness shame would have a positive relationship with depression. Second, we hypothesized that cognitive reappraisal would be inversely related with depression. Conversely, it was hypothesized that expressive suppression would be positively relationship with depression. Lastly, it was hypothesized that emotion regulation would mediate the EMS-depression relationship.