Do Individual Differences in Emotion Regulation Mediate the Relationship Between Mental Toughness and Symptoms of Depression?

Mental Toughness (MT) provides crucial psychological capacities for achievement in sports,<br/>education, and work settings. Previous research examined the role of MT in the domain of<br/>mental health and showed that MT is negatively associated with and predictive of fewer<br/>depressive symptoms in non-clinical populations. The present study aimed at 1) investigating<br/>to what extent mentally tough individuals use two emotion regulation strategies: cognitive<br/>reappraisal and expressive suppression; 2) exploring whether individual differences in<br/>emotion regulation strategy use mediate the relationship between MT and depressive<br/>symptoms. Three hundred sixty-four participants (M = 24.31 years, SD = 9.16) provided<br/>self-reports of their levels of MT, depressive symptoms, and their habitual use of cognitive<br/>reappraisal and expressive suppression. The results showed a statistically significant<br/>correlation between MT and two commonly used measures of depressive symptoms. A small<br/>statistically significant positive correlation between MT and the habitual use of cognitive<br/>reappraisal was also observed. The correlation between MT and the habitual use of<br/>expressive suppression was statistically significant, but the size of the effect was small. A<br/>statistical mediation model indicated that individual differences in the habitual use of<br/>expressive suppression mediate the relationship between MT and depressive symptoms. No<br/>such effect was found for the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal. Implications of these<br/>findings and possible avenues for future research are discussed.