Problem Orientation and Psychological Distress Among Adolescents: Do Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies Mediate Their Relationship?

Abstract

Adolescence is a critical period for the development of attitudes and skills crucial in determining vulnerability for psychological distress. The current study aimed to focus on the association of problem orientation and cognitive emotion regulation strategies with psychological distress and demonstrate the mediator roles of adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the association of problem orientation with psychological distress. Data were collected from 335 adolescents (167 female) aged 14-to-18 years (M= 14.7, SD= .95) via measures of problem orientation, cognitive emotion regulation, and psychological distress. The results revealed that maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (self-blame and other-blame) mediated the association of negative problem orientation with psychological distress. The findings emphasize the crucial roles of blaming-focused strategies in this relationship.

Keywords

Problem orientation emotion regulation psychological distress

Adolescence represents a transitional period that is characterized by several changes in biological, cognitive, and social domains that are critical for the successful management of daily hassles. Moreover, adolescents are exposed to increased levels of both internal and external stressors that they have to deal with by receiving minimal help from adults compared to childhood, which lead to elevations in subjectively felt distress and negative affect (McLaughlin & Hatzenbuehler, 2009). Such changes taking place in both interpersonal and intrapersonal domains are linked with higher susceptibility to psychological disorders (Casey et al., 2008). Accordingly, resilience-related factors become extremely critical in understanding vulnerability for psychological disorders especially during adolescence (Mestre et al., 2017).

Problem orientation

One critical factor to mitigate the development of psychological distress among adolescents is social problem-solving (SPS) (Siu & Shek, 2010), which refers to a set of processes utilized for the generation of effective solutions for problems encountered in social situations (D’Zurilla et al., 2002). D’Zurilla et al. (2004) proposed a model of SPS based on two different higher-order factors as the “actual problem-solving skills” and the “problem orientation.” In the current study, we will focus on the “problem orientation,” which represents the motivational aspects of problem-solving. D’Zurilla et al. (2002) defined problem orientation as response tendencies that become activated in case of encountering a problematic situation and suggested it to be composed of two components as positive and negative problem orientation. Positive Problem Orientation (PPO) is conceptualized as a protective factor that is associated with the inclination to perceive the problems as challenges and with a potential for facilitating proactive problem-solving and coping (Frye & Goodman, 2000). PPO, in line with the original conceptualization of Maydeu-Olivares and D’Zurilla (1995, 1996), was reported to be associated with lower levels of psychological distress both prospectively and cross-sectionally (Kuzucu, 2016; Siu & Shek, 2010). The other dimension, which is both related to and distinct from PPO, is Negative Problem Orientation (NPO) (Maydeu-Olivares & D’Zurilla, 1996). People high in NPO are more inclined to see problems as serious obstacles and soon feel frustrated and upset, which result in an overall pessimism regarding the outcome of problematic situations. Thus, rather than facilitating active coping, it has the immediate effect of inhibiting the problem-solving process (Siu & Shek, 2010). NPO appeared to have significant positive associations with measures of psychological distress (Chang et al., 2009; Hasegawa et al., 2015; Siu & Shek, 2010) and this association is more robust when compared with the connection of PPO with similar constructs (Chang et al., 2009; Eskin et al., 2013).

Extant research consistently revealed NPO as a characteristic that has close connections with psychological distress and variables that are known to be connected with vulnerability for psychological distress. Notably, Eskin et al. (2013) and Hasegawa et al. (2018) indicated NPO to be prospectively associated with elevated levels of depression and depression-related mechanisms such as rumination and worry, which is a result that was also emphasized by Fergus et al. (2015). Likewise, Wilson et al. (2011) reported a similar association suggesting that the tendency to approach problems negatively, which is a characteristic seen in high NPO individuals, has the effect of magnifying the problems and thus is responsible for elevated levels of depression. Research on adolescent populations also provides similar results, as NPO has been shown to exceptionally predict depression and anxiety (Ciarrochi et al., 2009; Lee & Woodruff-Borden, 2018). In conclusion, even though the research indicates a robust association of both PPO and NPO with psychological distress, the mechanisms that are crucial in the association of problem orientation with psychological distress are less clear (Wilson et al., 2011).

Cognitive emotion regulation strategies

Emotion regulation (ER) refers to a wide variety of strategies that are employed by individuals when they need to change the intensity, duration, and nature of the emotions they are experiencing (McRae & Gross, 2020). Cognitive ER, in particular, is defined as the cognitive processes that people consciously engage in, to deal with emotionally charged stimuli (Garnefski et al., 2001). Similar to problem orientation, cognitive ER strategies are also critical for the management of especially challenging emotions when individuals are going through stressful events. Research indicates that individual differences in cognitive ER capacities can be observable during adolescence, and the frequency of certain cognitive strategies plays an important role in predicting adolescents’ vulnerability for psychological disorders (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2018). Garnefski et al.’s (2001) model of cognitive ER suggests nine cognitive strategies that form two higher-order factors named adaptive and maladaptive cognitive ER strategies (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2018; Garnefski et al., 2002). Adaptive ER regulation is composed of specific dimensions such as “putting into perspective”, “positive refocusing”, “positive reappraisal”, “acceptance”, and “planning” (Garnefski et al., 2001). These strategies were also referred to as the “engagement strategies” since they involve a tendency to approach the problem rather than its avoidance (King et al., 2018). The systematic use of these strategies had been argued to be associated with better mental health outcomes in various populations (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2018) indicating that people higher on acceptance of negative emotions and positive reappraisal of negative events tend to report lower levels of psychological distress. More specifically, Azadi et al. (2020) indicated frequent use of such strategies to have significant connections with lower levels of depression. Similar results were also reported by Liu et al. (2020) for adolescent populations.

Frequent use of maladaptive cognitive ER strategies such as “self-blame”, “other-blame”, “rumination”, “catastrophizing”, on the other hand, shows consistent negative associations with well-being (Garnefski et al., 2017). Also, subtypes of maladaptive cognitive ER strategies have significant links with elevations in both anxiety and depression (Domaradzka & Fajkowska, 2018; Stikkelbroek et al., 2016). Even though Garnefski et al. (2001) sought the initial results from adult populations, studies focusing on ER from a developmental perspective and specifically targeting adolescents revealed similar findings (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2018; Garnefski et al., 2003). Notably, Gardner and Epkins (2012) showed that elevated levels of depression among preadolescent girls were associated with the utilization of maladaptive cognitive ER strategies more frequently. Similarly, Öngen (2010) documented higher levels of depression among adolescents who reported using the ER strategies that are categorized as maladaptive. Such findings may also stem from the fact that these strategies are rather reflexive and are triggered by an attempt to relieve the negative emotion as soon as possible (King et al., 2018). Thus, frequent use of maladaptive strategies does not only strengthen the intensity and duration of negative emotions (Brans & Verduyn, 2014) but may also play a role in the emergence of additional problems in both intrapersonal and interpersonal areas (Marroquín et al., 2017). However, adaptive ER strategies such as positive refocusing appeared to have an inverse relationship with depressive complaints since these strategies mainly involve modification of one’s perspective of the negative situation, besides requiring more cognitive resources (Garnefski et al., 2001).

The current study

Various studies have indicated cognitive ER strategies to be mediating the relationship between different distal risk factors and different types of psychological distress. For example, Liu et al. (2020) documented both adaptive and maladaptive cognitive ER strategies to explain the association of neuroticism with depression. Similarly, Stikkelbroek et al. (2016) indicated the role of maladaptive cognitive ER strategies in the bond between unpleasant life events and depression. They argued that using such strategies in the regulation of especially unpleasant emotions may intensify the adolescents’ vulnerability for emotional disorders. Such studies indicated the role of maladaptive ER strategies as mediators in the association of distal risk factors such as neuroticism, and insecure attachment patterns with psychological distress (Andrés et al., 2016; d’Acremont & van der Linden, 2007). In other words, maladaptive ER strategies are utilized more by adolescents who have such vulnerabilities for psychological disorders. However, adaptive ER strategies did not present such robust results regarding their mediator roles. For example, Andrés et al. (2016) and Stikkelbroek et al. (2016) reported adaptive strategies do not significantly mediate the association between neuroticism and depression.

In the present study, we aimed to assess the roles of adaptive and maladaptive cognitive ER strategies as potential mediators in the association between problem orientation and psychological distress among adolescents between ages 14 and 17. Adolescence is a very important life stage for the solidification of specific attitudes and skills that are crucial for dealing with internal and external stressors, in addition to being the stage when symptoms of many psychological disorders appear for the first time (Casey et al., 2008). The attitudes and abilities that solidify during this stage have been documented to be associated with mental health outcomes (McLaughlin & Hatzenbuehler, 2009). Thus, understanding the associations between such structures is of great importance for a better understanding of vulnerability for psychological distress. Problem orientation, since it is associated with the way the individuals appraise the problems that they may encounter in interpersonal relationships, is highly connected with the inclination to experience psychological distress (Siu & Shek, 2010) and the way the problems are appraised by individuals may be linked with the characteristics of the ER strategies that are used by the individuals (Brans & Verduyn, 2014). Notably, the way the individuals appraise the problems (as solvable or unsolvable) and themselves (as capable or incapable) may have significant implications in the characteristics of ER strategies that they use, with more negative appraisals of both the self and the problem being associated with an inclination to use maladaptive strategies and thus unpleasant mental health outcomes (Bigman et al., 2016). In other words, the tendency to interpret the problems encountered in social situations as negative may be associated with a tendency to use maladaptive ER strategies. However, people high on PPO, since they perceive problems and difficult interpersonal situations as mere challenges, may be more inclined to use more adaptive ER strategies. Thus, it was hypothesized that cognitive ER strategies will mediate the associations of NPO and PPO with psychological distress. More specifically, NPO is expected to be associated with psychological distress through maladaptive cognitive ER strategies, rather than adaptive strategies. The mediator role of adaptive cognitive ER is expected to be significant for the association between PPO and psychological distress. Furthermore, the present study aims to explore whether the employment of specific ER strategies may be linked to differences in psychological distress.

Method

Participants

A sample of 335 adolescents (167 girls) enrolled in different high schools, in grades 9 to 11, between ages of 14–18-year olds (M=14.7, SD= .95) participated in this study. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling.

Measures

Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised (SPSI-R)

Developed by D’Zurilla et al. (2002), it is a 52-item (5-point Likert Type) self-report measure designed to measure five different components of the social problem-solving process as “positive problem orientation” (PPO), “negative problem orientation” (NPO), “rational problem solving”, “impulsive/carelessness style”, “avoidance style”. In the current study, we have employed only NPO and PPO subscales of SPSI-R. Higher scores are indicative of increased PPO and NPO. The coefficient alphas for PPO and NPO are .76 and .88 respectively (Maydeu-Olivares et al., 2000) while D’Zurilla et al. (2002) provide supportive evidence of good validity for SPSI-R. The Turkish version (Eskin & Aycan, 2009) of the scale, which was documented to have adequate high consistency (.88 and .67 for NPO and PPO) and the retest reliability (.61 and .84 for PPO and NPO) was used in the current study.

Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ, Garnefski et al., 2001)

CERQ is composed of 36, 5-Likert type items used in the self-report examination of individuals’ utilization of cognitive ER strategies. It includes five subscales for adaptive strategies (“acceptance”, “positive refocusing”, “refocusing on planning”, “positive reappraisal”, and “putting into perspective”) and four subscales for maladaptive strategies (“self-blame”, “rumination”, “catastrophizing” and “other- blame”). This study employed the Turkish adaptation of the CERQ (Tuna & Bozo, 2012) which displays an adequate internal consistency (.72 to .83) and retest variability (.50 to .70).

Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS, Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995)

It is a 42-item self-report questionnaire developed to discriminate between the anxiety, depression, and stress levels of the individuals. Responders evaluate each item on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0 to 3. Research on DASS revealed high internal consistency (.91, .81, and .89 for Depression, Anxiety, and Stress, respectively) in addition to adequate convergent and discriminant validity evidence. The current study used the Turkish version of the scale (Bilgel & Bayram, 2010) which has an internal consistency of .92, .86, and .88 for depression, anxiety, and stress, respectively. The total score was used as a measure of general psychological distress in the current study.

Procedure

Prior to data collection, permissions were obtained from the IRB of the author university and the Turkish ministry of education. The data collection procedure occurred in three high schools in urban areas of Istanbul. The researchers, after arriving at the schools, informed the school counselors and principles about the nature of the study; and transferred the pen-and-pencil versions of the questionnaires. Parental permissions were not obtained; however, the students were informed that their participation is based on volition, and their responses will be analyzed for scientific purposes. They were asked to sign an informed consent form before filling out the questionnaires. All questionnaires were presented to the participants during class time, under the supervision of the school counselors and class teachers. At least one of the researchers was present at the school during the data collection procedure. Completion of the questionnaires took 40 minutes on average.

Results

The data set was checked for missing variables, normality, and linearity before the statistical analyses. Data from 56 participants were deleted because they only filled out the consent/demographic forms and did not complete the remaining questionnaires. Additionally, 16 other cases were deleted since they were identified as univariate or multivariate outliers. The analyses were conducted with 263 participants (138 girls) aged between 14 and 17. As presented in Table 1, PPO had significant correlations with all study variables except for age and maladaptive ER. The significant correlations indicate that high levels of PPO are connected with lower levels of psychological distress and NPO, in addition to higher levels of adaptive ER. High levels of NPO, on the other hand, appeared to be significantly related to higher levels of psychological distress and a high frequency of using maladaptive ER strategies. The association between NPO and adaptive ER strategies was not significant. Lastly, more frequent use of maladaptive ER strategies was linked with more intense levels of psychological distress. A similar association was not obtained for adaptive ER strategies.

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations, internal consistency and correlations among the scales included in the analyses.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
1. NPO	–
2. PPO	−.25**	–
3. ACER	−.11	.47**	–
4. ACER-A	.17**	.09	.44**	–
5. ACER-PR	−.16*	.23**	.68**	.08	–
6. ACER-RP	−.14*	.44**	.63**	.05	.24**	–
7. ACER-PRea	−.19**	.48**	.80**	.11	.43**	.54**	–
8. ACER-PP	−.04	.31**	.76**	.27**	.40**	.27**	.58**	–
9. MCER	.49**	−.06	.14*	.30**	−.02	.02	.04	.16*	–
10. MCER-R	.23**	.19**	.23**	.20**	−.01	.29**	.20**	.13*	.57**	–
11. MCER-C	.53**	−.26**	−.08	.22**	−.11	−.17**	−.19**	.01	.78**	.18**	–
12. MCER-SB	.35**	.06	.17**	.28**	−.08	.06	.12	.22**	.69**	.33**	.39**	–
13. MCER-OB	.20**	−.14*	.07	.09	.14*	−.11	−.01	.10	.63**	.02	.48**	.18**	–
14. DASS	.54**	−.22**	−.05	.15*	−.02	−.18*	−.09	−.01	.49**	.18**	.44**	.37**	.31**	–
15. Age	.02	−.12	−.07	−.01	.08	−.27**	−.06	.01	.18*	−.07	.23**	.05	.28**	.21**	–
16. Sex	−.11	.13*	.13*	−.04	.06	.15*	.15*	.10	.01	.10	.01	.07	.01	−.01	.02
Mean	27.17	16.38	64.29	12.10	12.10	15.35	12.96	11.78	45.71	13.73	10.56	11.70	9.72	48.65	14.78
SD	8.79	3.98	12.15	3.38	4.18	3.61	3.48	3.65	9.59	3.64	3.82	3.31	3.57	26.83	.93
α	.88	.68	.76	.65	.69	.79	.75	.63	.75	.74	.70	.70	.76	.96

* p < .05, ** p< .001, Note. NPO= Negative Problem Orientation, PPO= Positive Problem Orientation, ACER= Adaptive Cognitive Emotion Regulation, ACER-A: Acceptance, ACER-PR= Positive Refocusing, ACER-RP: Refocusing on Planning, ACER-PRea= Positive Reappraisal, ACER-PP= Putting into Perspective, MCER= Maladaptive Cognitive Emotion Regulation, MCER-R= Rumination, MCER-C= Catastrophizing, MCER-SB= Self-blame, MCER-OB= Other-blame, DASS = Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale.

Mediation analyses

To examine the indirect relationship between problem orientation (PPO and NPO, respectively) and psychological distress through the mediators, namely adaptive and maladaptive CER, mediation analyses were executed via the bootstrapping method with 5000 bootstrap resamples (PROCESS, Model 4, Hayes, 2018). The bootstrapping method utilizes the %95 confidence interval to find out an estimate of the indirect effects of a predictor variable on the dependent variable. The indirect effect is accepted as significant if the number 0 (zero) does not fall between two extremes in the %95 confidence interval.

The first analysis examined the mediator roles of adaptive and maladaptive CER in the relationship between PPO and psychological distress. Gender and age were coded as covariates to control for individual differences. The first mediation analysis, as shown on Figure 1, indicated that the absolute indirect effect was between −.07 and .04 (β = −.01, p > .05) for ACER and between −.08 and .04 (β = −.02, p > .05) for MCER, respectively (Figure 1). These intervals did not include zero, therefore, the inference is that both MCER and ACER do not significantly mediate the association between positive problem orientation and psychological distress, with the indirect effect size appearing as .03.

Figure 1.

The parallel multiple mediation model of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation (ACER) and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation (MCER) on the relationship between positive problem orientation (PPO) and psychological distress (DASS). Dashed lines indicate non-significant paths. The values are presented as unstandardized coefficients. *p<.05. **p<.01 ***p<.001

The second analysis investigated the mediator roles of both adaptive and maladaptive CER in the association between NPO and psychological distress. As in the previous analysis, sex and age of the participants were included as covariates. The actual indirect effect was estimated to be between −.01 and .02 (β = .00, p > .05) and it was between .07 and .19 (β = .13, p < .001) for ACER and MCER, respectively (Figure 2). Since the interval for ACER covers zero, the mediator role of ACER in the relationship between NPO and psychological distress was not significant. However, the confidence interval for MCER did not include zero, indicating that MCER significantly mediates the relationship of NPO with distress. The indirect effect size was found to be .13.

Figure 2.

The parallel multiple mediation model of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation (ACER) and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation (MCER) on the relationship between negative problem orientation (NPO) and psychological distress (DASS). Dashed lines indicate non-significant paths. The values are presented as unstandardized coefficients. *p<.05. **p<.01 ***p<.001

A further analysis was conducted to understand the unique mediator roles of different maladaptive ER strategies, namely other-blame, self-blame, catastrophizing, and rumination, in the relationship of NPO with psychological distress, with age and sex, once again serving as the covariates. As presented in Figure 3, the results were significant for both blaming self (β = .18, 95% CI [.04, .34]) or others (β = .08, 95% CI [.01, .20]) in the model, indicating that these two ER strategies act as mediators in the association between NPO and psychological distress. However, the results for rumination and catastrophizing were not significant indicating that the relationship between NPO and psychological distress is not significantly mediated by rumination and catastrophizing types of maladaptive MCER (β = .02, 95% CI [−.06, .09] and β = .08, 95% CI [−.14, .30] for rumination and catastrophizing respectively). Moreover, the indirect effect size in the current mediation analysis was found to be .12.

Figure 3.

The parallel multiple mediation model of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between negative problem orientation (NPO) and psychological distress (DASS). Dashed lines indicate non-significant paths. The values are presented as unstandardized coefficients. *p<.05. **p<.01 ***p<.001

Even though the total ACER score did not have a significant mediator role, the separate roles of the adaptive strategies as mediators between NPO with psychological distress scores were tested in two additional mediation analyses. In both analyses, age and sex were added as covariates. As presented in Figure 4, the results did not indicate any significant results, with indirect effects for putting in to perspective, positive refocusing, positiveappraisal, acceptance and focusing on replanning appearing as (β = .00, 95% CI [−.04, .04]), (β = −.03, 95% CI [−.10, .03]), (β = −.04, 95% CI [−.14, .05]), (β = .03, 95% CI [−.02, .11]), and (β = .04, 95% CI [−.01, .12], respectively.

Figure 4.

The parallel multiple mediation model of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between negative problem orientation (NPO) and psychological distress (DASS). Dashed lines indicate non-significant paths. The values are presented as unstandardized coefficients. *p<.05. **p<.01 ***p<.001

Finally, Harman’s single factor method (Podsakoff et al., 2003) was used to test for the “common method bias”, which indicated that the single factor was explaining only 18.6% of the variance. The results indicated that a significant common method bias is not present in the current study.

Discussion

Adolescence is the life stage when the individuals acquire certain skills that have the potential for either increasing or decreasing the individuals’ inclination for psychological disorders (McLaughlin & Hatzenbuehler, 2009). The main goal of the current study was to understand the mediator roles of adaptive and maladaptive cognitive ER strategies in the association between different forms of problem orientation and psychological distress in an adolescent sample. The results indicated the maladaptive cognitive ER strategies to be significantly mediating the association between NPO and psychological distress. More specifically, the findings imply that adolescents who tend to see the problems encountered in social spheres are more likely to utilize self-blame and other-blame as ER strategy, which in turn is associated with the elevated experience of psychological distress. However, a similar mediating role of adaptive cognitive ER strategies was not observed. Furthermore, neither dimension of cognitive ER appeared to mediate the association of PPO with psychological distress.

The findings specifically suggested that the tendency to engage in self-blame and other-blame mediate the relationship between NPO and psychological distress. Based on the results of previous studies, it could be suggested that adolescents with NPO, since they are inclined to view the problems in their lives as unsolvable and threatening and themselves as “incompetent” when faced with difficult situations, may be showing a preference for certain ER strategies that they are likely to function in a maladaptive way. Even though these strategies seem to be urgently lessening the intensity of the negative emotions, they bear the potential for triggering more pervasive and intense negative emotions and behaviors (e.g., loneliness and social withdrawal) in the long run (Graham & Juvonen, 1998). Furthermore, they also interfere with the adoption and practicing of more mature and adaptive ER strategies (Saarni, 2014), which may prevent especially the adolescents from developing a “coping toolkit” as well as an image of the self as a person who has the resources for dealing with difficult emotions and situations.

Notably, in our research, the habit of making both internal and external attributions (in the form of self-blame and other-blame) in response to negative emotions had been documented to be responsible for mediating the association of NPO with psychological distress. Considering that adolescence is a critical period for identity development, utilizing self-blame to deal with problems may interfere with the development of a realistic and adaptive self-image (Saarni, 2014), which may be linked with psychological distress. Furthermore, adolescents give critical importance to social relationships with peers and are hypersensitive to social rejection (Blakemore & Mills, 2014). Thus, the predisposition to blame others when distressed can hamper the quality of interpersonal relationships, which may also be associated with psychological distress (Zimmer-Gembeck, 2016).

The current research failed to find evidence for the mediator roles of rumination and catastrophizing in the relationship of NPO with psychological distress, which is in fact in contradiction with our expectations. Both of these ER strategies had been documented to be significant predictors of psychological distress (Huh et al., 2017; Öngen, 2010) as well as having significant positive associations with NPO (Flink et al., 2012). Past research suggests that rumination may not necessarily be directly associated with unconstructive outcomes since most people engage in ruminative thoughts with the purpose of understanding and processing the negative life events (Watkins, 2018). Rather, its adaptiveness might depend on some contextual factors (e.g., content valence; Watkins, 2008). Moreover, although the current results indicate that adolescents with high NPO utilize catastrophizing more frequently, the association between catastrophizing and psychological distress appeared to be rather weak. This finding of our study is consistent with a recent finding that self-blame but not catastrophizing mediated the link between neglect and internalizing symptoms in adolescent populations (Tanzer et al., 2020). One of the possible explanations for this finding might be the differential natures of the strategies employed. To put it more explicitly, both self-blame and other-blame attribute the cause of the problem to a specific person (or people), whereas catastrophizing includes a momentarily misappraisal of the situation (exaggerating the severity of the faced problem). Considering that being overly dramatic is a typical characteristic of the adolescence period (American Psychological Association, 2002), catastrophizing might not be directly related to psychological distress. On the contrary, attributing the occurrence of the event to the self or others might feed the existing negative beliefs about oneself and the other resulting in psychological distress. However, it should be noted that the effect size for the current study was small, which might be the reason for the non-significant results. Therefore, these explanations require further examination by future researchers.

The current findings also indicated that adaptive cognitive ER strategies do not mediate the bond between NPO and psychological distress. Several studies suggested NPO as associated with adverse psychological states (Chang et al., 2004; Hasegawa et al., 2015; Siu & Shek, 2010), so the adolescents who are prone to have extremely negative appraisals of problem situations as unsolvable and themselves as not competent enough to deal with those problems may not be initiating in any effort to accept the situation or change the way they think about it. Similarly, adaptive cognitive ER strategies might have significant associations with positive psychological outcomes rather than adverse outcomes.

We also did not find a significant mediator role of cognitive ER strategies on the association between PPO and psychological distress, replicating the results of some previous studies conducted with adolescent populations (Andrés et al., 2016; Stikkelbroek et al., 2016). Studies indicate that PPO was consistently associated with adaptive outcomes such as positive well-being rather than negative consequences, including psychological distress (Chang et al., 2004) explaining our failure to find significant results in this domain. Moreover, multiple studies have documented adaptive ER strategies to have a weaker association with psychological distress than the maladaptive strategies (Huh et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2020), which is also in line with our findings.

Although current research has the potential to contribute to the literature given that it suggests the mediating role of maladaptive cognitive ER on the association between NPO and psychological distress, it has several limitations. The primary limitation is that our data relied on self-reported recall of problem-solving skills and ER strategies and some of the subscales (such as PPO) yielded low levels of internal consistency. Self-report scales may reflect memory biases, jeopardizing the confidentiality of the responses. Secondly, the cross-sectional design of the study only provides correlational linkages between variables instead of presenting causal relationships. Thirdly, the current study’s data was based only on self-reports of adolescents, which could inflate the common method bias. Moreoever, the data is obtained from high school students in Istanbul, indicating a convenience sampling method. Collecting the data from a restricted district with a smaller sample might risk the generalizability of the results. Further studies should include adolescents from a more representative sample, which will allow for acquiring more generalizable outcomes. Also, the data can be collected from multiple sources (e.g., teachers, parents) to mitigate common method bias. Furthermore, although we intended to assess psychological distress, we did not control for diagnostic status of the participants in terms of other psychological disorders. Lastly, the present study mainly focused on the path from problem-orientation to psychological distress via the use of cognitive ER strategies. However, there might be several routes to psychological distress that should be examined by future researchers. One option is that frequent experience of maladaptive emotion regulation might be linked to psychological distress via forming negative beliefs regarding the problems and oneself. Secondly, psychologically healthy adolescents might report more positive beliefs via higher use of adaptive and less use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. These arguments require further investigation for determining the direction of the mechanisms involved in psychological distress.

In conclusion, the present study is one of the first to examine the mediating role of maladaptive cognitive ER strategies on the relationship between problem orientation and psychological distress in an adolescent sample. The findings highlight the adverse effects of NPO in the adolescence period, suggesting the importance of school-based interventions that aim to teach and improve problem-solving skills.

Footnotes

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects of Koç University with the reference number of 2018.013.IRB3.013.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Elcin Ray-Yol

Ayse Altan-Atalay

Author Biographies

Meryem Söğüt received her BA from Bogazici University in Guidance and Counseling in 2016 and her master's degree from Koc University in Developmental Psychology in 2019. She is currently a first year PhD student in Clinical Psychology at Ibn Haldun University, Turkey. She is also a member of Family and Child Research Lab at Boğaziçi University. Sogut's research interests are centered around the role of risk factors such as executive functions and emotion regulation in the development of different psychopathologies.

Ecem Yedidağ received her BA degree in psychology from Koc University. Her research interests are repetitive negative thinking patterns, emotion regulation and traumatic childhood experiences.

Elcin Ray-Yol received her master's degree from Koc University in Social and Organizational Psychology in 2019. She is currently a second year PhD student in Applied Social Psychology at University of Guelph, Canada. She is also a member of Center for Cross-Cultural Research. Ray-Yol's research interests are acculturation of newcomers, intergroup relations, and intergroup ideologies.

Ahmet Berk Özdemir received his BA in psychology from Kadir Has University. He is currently working towards completing his MA in clinical research in psychology at Koç University. His research interests include risk and maintenance factors of mood disorders, such as attachment, emotion regulation processes, and perfectionistic cognitions.

Ayse Altan-Atalay received her BA and MA degrees from Bogazici University. She got her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Middle East Technical University. She is currently working as an instructor at Psychology Department at Koc University. Her area of expertise is Clinical Psychology. Dr. Altan-Atalay’s research interests are transdiagnostic risk factors such as emotion regulation, perfectionism, impulsivity, and looming cognitive style which is a risk factor for anxiety disorders.

References

Andrés

M. L.

Richaud de Minzi

M. C.

Castañeiras

Canet-Juric

Rodríguez-Carvajal

(2016). Neuroticism and depression in children: The role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 177(2), 55–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2016.1148659

American Psychological Association. (2002). Developing adolescents: A reference for professionals [ebook] (1st ed.). http://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/develop.pdf

Azadi

Khosravani

King

Mohammadzadeh

Baseri

(2020). Effects of neuropsychological systems on psychopathology through cognitive emotion regula- tion strategies in individuals with suicide attempts. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 44, 229–239. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-019-10040-z

Bigman

Y. E.

Mauss

I. B.

Gross

J. J.

Tamir

(2016). Yes I can: Expected success promotes actual success in emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion, 30(7), 1380–1387. http://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1067188

Bilgel

Bayram

(2010). Turkish version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-42): Psychometric properties. Archives of Neuropsychiatry/Noropsikiatri Arsivi, 47(2). https://doi.org/10.4274/npa.5344

Blakemore

S. J.

Mills

K. L.

(2014). Is adolescence a sensitive period for sociocultural processing? Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 187–207.

Brans

Verduyn

(2014). Intensity and duration of negative emotions: Comparing the role of appraisals and regulation strategies. PLoS One, 9(3), e92410. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0092410

Casey

B. J.

Getz

Galvan

(2008). The adolescent brain. Developmental Review, 28(1), 62–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2007.08.003

Chang

E. C.

D'Zurilla

T. J.

Sanna

L. J.

(Eds.). (2004). Social problem solving: Theory, research, and training. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10805-000

10.

Chang

E. C.

D’Zurilla

T. J.

Sanna

L. J.

(2009). Social problem solving as a mediator of the link between stress and psychological well-being in middle-adulthood. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 33(1), 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-007-9155-9

11.

Ciarrochi

Leeson

Heaven

P. C.

(2009). A longitudinal study into the interplay between problem orientation and adolescent well-being. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56(3), 441. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015765

12.

d’Acremont

Van der Linden

(2007). How is impulsivity related to depression in adolescence? Evidence from a French validation of the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire. Journal of Adolescence, 30(2), 271–282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2006.02.007

13.

Domaradzka

Fajkowska

(2018). Cognitive emotion regulation strategies in anxiety and depression understood as types of personality. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 856. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00856

14.

D’Zurilla

T. J.

Nezu

A. M.

Maydeu-Olivares

(2002). The Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised (SPSI-R): Technical manual. MHS.

15.

D’Zurilla

T. J.

Nezu

A. M.

Maydeu-Olivares

(2004). Social problem solving: Theory and assessment. In Chang

E. C.

D’Zurilla

T. J.

?0026; Sanna

L. J.

(Eds), Social problem solving: Theory, research, and training (pp. 11–27). American Psychological Association.

16.

Eskin

Akyol

Çelik

E. Y.

Gültekin

B. K.

(2013). Social problem‐solving, perceived stress, depression and life‐satisfaction in patients suffering from tension type and migraine headaches. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 54(4), 337–343. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12056

17.

Eskin

Aycan

(2009). The adaptation of the revised social problem solving inventory into Turkish: A reliability and validity analysis. Turkish Journal of Psychology, 12(23), 11–13.

18.

Fergus

T. A.

Valentiner

D. P.

K. D.

McGrath

P. B.

(2015). Examining the symptom-level specificity of negative problem orientation in a clinical sample. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 44(2), 153–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/16506073.2014.987314

19.

Flink

I. K.

Boersma

MacDonald

Linton

S. J.

(2012). Understanding catastrophizing from a misdirected problem‐solving perspective. British Journal of Health Psychology, 17(2), 408–419. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02044.x

20.

Frye

A. A.

Goodman

S. H.

(2000). Which social problem-solving components buffer depression in adolescent girls? Cognitive Therapy and Research, 24(6), 637–650. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005583210589

21.

Gardner

Epkins

C. C.

(2012). Girls’ rumination and anxiety sensitivity: Are they related after controlling for girl, maternal, and parenting factors? Child and Youth Care Forum, 41, 561–578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-012-9188184.

22.

Garnefski

Boon

Kraaij

(2003). Relationships between cognitive strategies of adolescents and depressive symptomatology across different types of life event. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32(6), 401–408. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025994200559

23.

Garnefski

Hossain

Kraaij

(2017). Relationships between maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychopathology in adolescents from Bangladesh. Archives of Depression and Anxiety, 3(2), 23–29. https://doi.org/10.17352/2455-5460.000019

24.

Garnefski

Kraaij

(2018). Specificity of relations between adolescents’ cognitive emotion regulation strategies and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Cognition and Emotion, 32(7), 1401–1408. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2016.1232698

25.

Garnefski

Kraaij

Spinhoven

(2001). Negative life events, cognitive emotion regulation and emotional problems. Personality and Individual Differences, 30(8), 1311–1327. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(00)00113-6

26.

Garnefski

Kraaij

Spinhoven

(2002). Manual for the use of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. DATEC.

27.

Graham

Juvonen

(1998). Self-blame and peer victimization in middle school: An attributional analysis. Developmental Psychology, 34(3), 587. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.34.3.587

28.

Hasegawa

Hattori

Nishimura

Tanno

(2015). Prospective associations of depressive rumination and social problem solving with depression: A 6-month longitudinal study. Psychological Reports, 116(3), 870–888. https://doi.org/10.2466/02.20.PR0.116k28w7

29.

Hasegawa

Kunisato

Morimoto

Nishimura

Matsuda

(2018). How do rumination and social problem solving intensify depression? A longitudinal study. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 36(1), 28–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942-017-0272-4

30.

Hayes

A. F.

(2018). Partial, conditional, and moderated mediation: Quantification, inference, and interpretation. Communication Monographs, 85(1), 4–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2017.1352100

31.

Huh

H. J.

Kim

K. H.

Lee

H. K.

Chae

J. H.

(2017). The relationship between childhood trauma and the severity of adulthood depression and anxiety symptoms in a clinical sample: The mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Journal of Affective Disorders, 213, 44–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.02.009

32.

King

K. M.

Feil

M. C.

Halvorson

M. A.

(2018). Negative urgency is correlated with the use of reflexive and disengagement emotion regulation strategies. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(6), 822–834. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2167702618785619

33.

Kuzucu

(2016). Do anger control and social problem-solving mediate relationships between difficulties in emotion regulation and aggression in adolescents? Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 16(3), 849–866. https://doi.org/10.12738/estp.2016.3.0003

34.

Lee

A. H.

Woodruff-Borden

(2018). Roles of emotional reactivity, intolerance of uncertainty, and negative problem orientation on developing childhood worry. Personality and Individual Differences, 135, 25–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.06.048

35.

Liu

Chen

(2020). Influence of neuroticism on depressive symptoms among Chinese adolescents: The mediation effects of cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 420. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00420

36.

Lovibond

P. F.

Lovibond

S. H.

(1995). The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33(3), 335–343. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(94)00075-U

37.

Marroquín

Tennen

Stanton

A. L.

(2017). Coping, emotion regulation, and well-being: Intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. In M. D. Robinson & M. Eid (Eds.), The happy mind: Cognitive contributions to well-being (pp. 253–274). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58763-9_14

38.

Maydeu-Olivares

D’Zurilla

T. J.

(1995). A factor analysis of the Social Problem-Solving Inventory using polychoric correlations. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 11, 98–107. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.11.2.98

39.

Maydeu-Olivares

D’Zurilla

T. J.

(1996). A factor-analytic study of the Social Problem-Solving Inventory: An integration of theory and data. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 20, 115–133. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02228030

40.

Maydeu-Olivares

Rodrı́guez-Fornells

Gómez-Benito

D'Zurilla

T. J.

(2000). Psychometric properties of the spanish adaptation of the social problem-solving inventory-revised (SPSI-R). Personality and Individual Differences, 29(4), 699–708. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00226-3

41.

McLaughlin

K. A.

Hatzenbuehler

M. L.

(2009). Mechanisms linking stressful life events and mental health problems in a prospective, community-based sample of adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 44(2), 153–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.06.019

42.

McRae

Gross

J. J.

(2020). Emotion regulation. Emotion, 20(1), 1. http://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000703

43.

Mestre

J. M.

Núñez-Lozano

J. M.

Gómez-Molinero

Zayas

Guil

(2017). Emotion regulation ability and resilience in a sample of adolescents from a suburban area. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1980. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01980

44.

Öngen

D. E.

(2010). Cognitive emotion regulation in the prediction of depression and submissive behavior: Gender and grade level differences in Turkish adolescents. Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 1516–1523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.12.358

45.

Podsakoff

P. M.

MacKenzie

S. B.

Lee

J. ‐Y.

Podsakoff

N. P.

(2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879– 903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879

46.

Saarni

(2014). Emotion regulation and personality development in childhood. In Mroczek

D. K.

?0026; Little

T. D.

(Eds.), Handbook of personality development (pp. 245–262). Psychology Press.

47.

Siu

A. M.

Shek

D. T.

(2010). Social problem solving as a predictor of well-being in adolescents and young adults. Social Indicators Research, 95(3), 393–406. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9527-5

48.

Stikkelbroek

Bodden

D. H.

Kleinjan

Reijnders

van Baar

A. L.

(2016). Adolescent depression and negative life events, the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation. PLoS One, 11(8), e0161062. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161062

49.

Tanzer

Salaminios

Morosan

Campbell

Debbané

(2020). Self-blame mediates the link between childhood neglect experiences and internalizing symptoms in low-risk adolescents. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 14(1), 73–83.

50.

Tuna

Bozo

Ö.

(2012). The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Factor structure and psychometric properties of the Turkish version. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 34(4), 564–570. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-012-9303-8

51.

Watkins

E. R.

(2008). Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 163. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.163

52.

Watkins

E. R.

(2018). Rumination-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression. Guilford Publications.

53.

Wilson

C. J.

Bushnell

J. A.

Rickwood

D. J.

Caputi

Thomas

S. J.

(2011). The role of problem orientation and cognitive distortions in depression and anxiety interventions for young adults. Advances in Mental Health, 10(1), 52–61. https://doi.org/10.5172/jamh.2011.10.1.52

54.

Zimmer-Gembeck

M. J.

Nesdale

Webb

H. J.

Khatibi

Downey

(2016). A longitudinal rejection sensitivity model of depression and aggression: Unique roles of anxiety, anger, blame, withdrawal and retribution. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44(7), 1291–1307. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802