Emotional Regulation Strategies and Study Engagement: The Mediating Role of Well-Being

To succeed in their studies, students need to be engaged in their academic work. This research examined the mediating role of well-being in the relationship between emotion regulation (ER) strategies and academic engagement. Two adaptive emotional regulation strategies (emotional modification and emotional tolerance), study engagement, and well-being were measured among French undergraduate students ( N = 310). The mediation analysis showed that well-being partially mediates the positive relationship between emotional modification and engagement, with significant direct and indirect effects. In contrast, emotional tolerance does not have a significant total effect on study engagement due to positive indirect effects via well-being offset by negative direct effects. These results suggest that well-being may be an important mechanism through which certain emotional modification and tolerance are associated with study engagement, and that direct and indirect effects can oppose each other, thus masking the total effect. This underlines the potential relevance of emotional regulation skills development in student populations, as emotional modification and emotional tolerance were associated with well-being, which was in turn associated with study engagement.