Adaptive Emotion Regulation as a Moderator of the Association Between Maladaptive Emotion Regulation and Resilience

Introduction Emotional regulation strategies operate not in isolation, but within a broader regulatory repertoire. Under this lens, this paper investigates whether adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies moderate the relationship between maladaptive strategies and psychological resilience. Methods In a sample of 69 adults (mean age = 26.2 years; 75.36% female), adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation were assessed using the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), and resilience was measured using the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). Results Moderation analysis using Hayes's PROCESS macro (Model 1) revealed a significant interaction between maladaptive and adaptive emotion regulation in predicting resilience (ΔR² = 0.085, p = 0.012). Specifically, greater maladaptive emotion regulation was significantly associated with lower resilience at low levels of adaptive emotion regulation (b = -0.499, p = 0.009), whereas the association was nonsignificant at median (b = -0.221, p = 0.157) and high (b = -0.082, p = 0.622) levels of adaptive emotion regulation. Conclusion These findings suggest that adaptive emotion regulation moderates the association between maladaptive emotion regulation and resilience, with higher levels of adaptive regulation associated with a weaker negative relationship. The findings are consistent with a buffering moderation pattern and support further longitudinal and experimental investigation of adaptive regulation capacity as a potential target in resilience-focused interventions.