Abstract
Mental illness has severe personal, relational, and societal impacts, but its etiology is still poorly understood. Several correlates of mental illness have been identified, such as emotion dysregulation and the granularity of emotional experience; however, there is still much to be learned about the mechanisms behind these relationships and what causes these constructs to differ between individuals. This study aimed to examine hypothesized predictors of emotion dysregulation, emotional granularity, and mental health outcomes. Participants took a self-administered online survey with measures on various emotion constructs. I expected that emotional granularity would mediate the relationship between perceived emotion invalidation and mental health symptoms such as anxious arousal and anhedonic depression. Further, I predicted that a person’s attitudes toward emotional expression would moderate the relationship between perceived emotion invalidation and emotional granularity. This hypothesis was tested using a moderated mediation model via Hayes’ process macro. The moderation and mediations were significant, but results differed by gender. These results have important implications for interventions designed to treat disorders characterized by anxious or depressive symptoms.