Zijun Liu,1,* Tianhao Bao,2 Zhilan Yang,2,* Ye Ruan,2 Changqing Gao,2 Jie Wu2 

1The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China; 2Affiliated Mental Health Center of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Jie Wu, Affiliated Mental Health Center of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, 650224, People’s Republic of China, Email wujie@kmmu.edu.cn Tianhao Bao, Affiliated Mental Health Center of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, 650224, People’s Republic of China, Email Doctor@kmmu.edu.cn

Objective: Based on Conservation of resources theory, process model of emotion regulation and attachment theory, the present study examined how psychological capital affects anxiety through the mediation of emotion regulation strategies and explored the moderating role of parent-child relationship.
Methods: Using a longitudinal study method, 962 college students were surveyed twice at one-year intervals.
Results: (1) College students’ emotion regulation strategies (including cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) partially mediated psychological capital and anxiety mood; (2) parent-child relationship moderated the pathways of psychological capital and expressive suppression on anxiety, respectively.
Conclusion: College students with higher levels of parent-child relationship had stronger predictive effects of psychological capital and weaker predictive effects of expressive suppression on anxiety mood. The research findings clarify the combined effects of emotion regulation and parent-child relationships on anxiety among college students, providing valuable reference for the design and implementation of interventions to promote individual psychological well-being.

Keywords: psychological capital, emotion regulation strategies, anxiety, parent-child relationship