Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Dec 30:12:780144.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.780144. eCollection 2021.

The Relationship Between Fears of Compassion, Emotion Regulation Difficulties, and Emotional Eating in College Students: A Moderated Mediation Model

Shuwei Zhang  1 , Mingchun Guo  2 , Jingyun Wang  2 , Lihua Lin  1
Affiliations

The Relationship Between Fears of Compassion, Emotion Regulation Difficulties, and Emotional Eating in College Students: A Moderated Mediation Model

Shuwei Zhang et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Although previous research has found the impact of fears of compassion on eating disorders, the mechanism underlying the relationship between fears of compassion and emotional eating remains to be examined. This study aimed to examine the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties in the relationships between fears of compassion and emotional eating in college students, as well as the gender difference in the mediation model. The Fears of Compassion Scale, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire were completed by 673 college students in Fujian Province, China. Structural Equation Modeling was primarily employed to analyze the data. The results showed that both fear of compassion for self and fear of compassion from others were positively associated with emotion regulation difficulties, which in turn were related to emotional eating for female college students. Emotion regulation difficulties played a significant mediating effect in the relationship between fears of compassion and emotional eating. Comparatively, for male college students, only fear of compassion for self was positively associated with emotion regulation difficulties, but emotion regulation difficulties were not related to emotion eating. Moreover, the mediating effect of emotion regulation difficulties was not significant in the relationship between fears of compassion and emotion eating for male college students. The findings suggest that it is important to improve individuals' fears of compassion to reduce emotional eating, particularly for female college students.

Keywords: college students; emotion regulation; emotional eating; fears of compassion; moderated mediation model.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The mediation model of the study variables for female students; standardized coefficients are presented; * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The mediation model of the study variables for male students; standardized coefficients are presented; * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Aldao A., Dixon-Gordon K. L. (2014). Broadening the scope of research on emotion regulation strategies and psychopathology. Cogn. Behav. Ther. 43 22–33. 10.1080/16506073.2013.816769 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Antonucci T. C., Akiyama H. (1987). An examination of sex differences in social support among older men and women. Sex Roles 17 737–749.
    1. Arnow B., Kenardy J., Agras W. S. (1995). The Emotional Eating Scale: the development of a measure to assess coping with negative affect by eating. Int. J. Eat. Disord. 18 79–90. 10.1002/1098-108X(199507)18:1<79::AID-EAT2260180109<3.0.CO;2-V - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bardeen J. R., Fergus T. A., Orcutt H. K. (2012). An examination of the latent structure of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. J. Psychopathol. Behav. Assess. 34 382–392. 10.1007/s10862-012-9280-y - DOI
    1. Bentler P. M. (1990). Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychol. Bull. 107 238–246. 10.1037/0033-2909.107.2.238 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources