Relationship between emotional awareness and self-acceptance: the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies.

Self-acceptance is known as a strong indicator of positive mental health, and previous studies have identified the relationship between self-acceptance and emotion. However, there are still some research gaps in the relationship between self-acceptance and key emotional variables such as emotional awareness and emotional regulation strategies. The exploration of this part is also more conducive to the future design of effective ways to improve self-acceptance. Considering the Gross emotion regulation model, the present study aimed to examine the relationship between emotional awareness and self-acceptance, as well as the mediating effect of emotion regulation strategies. Data were collected from 419 college students in Zhejiang Province, China. Results showed that emotional awareness (IV) was positively associated with self-acceptance (DV), and both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression partially mediated the influence of emotional awareness on self-acceptance. The results suggest an underlying mechanism between emotional awareness and self-acceptance with emotion regulation strategies as robust factors. Theoretically, all of the results had significant ramifications and supplemented the empirical findings in the area of emotional health and self-acceptance. The mediation model also offers emotion-based innovation for approaches to improve self-acceptance, which has practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]