Cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the association between unfinished business and meaning in life among Peruvian university students: an inconsistent (suppression) mediation model

Vollständiger Abstract

Worum geht es in dieser Arbeit?

Abstract Background Unfinished business has been associated with a diminished sense of meaning in life. The regulatory mechanisms that might account for this association have not, however, been examined empirically. The present study examined whether cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) explain part of that association among university students of the San Martín Region, in the Peruvian Amazon. Methods A cross-sectional explanatory study with an associative strategy was conducted with 617 participants (M = 22.1 years, SD = 3.6; 54.0% women) recruited through convenience sampling with a snowball component. Structural equation modeling (MLR estimator) and mediation analyses with 5,000 bias-corrected bootstrap resamples were employed. Results Both structural models showed acceptable fit. Adaptive CERS produced a positive and significant indirect association (β = 0.087, 95% CI [0.055, 0.126]), whereas the direct (β = −0.202) and total (β = −0.115) associations were negative. This sign reversal constitutes an inconsistent mediation—a suppression pattern—rather than partial mediation. Maladaptive CERS produced no significant indirect association (β = 0.026, 95% CI [− 0.027, 0.078]). Conclusions Unfinished business was associated with a lower sense of meaning in life and, simultaneously, with greater use of adaptive CERS, which offset part of the negative direct association. The suppression pattern suggests that adaptive regulation may operate as a compensatory resource mobilized in response to unresolved experiences.