The effect of college students' adult attachment styles and gender role identity on emotion regulation in intimate relationships

Intimate relationships can account for a great proportion of individuals' personal lives and social interactions. In the current study, adult attachment, gender role identity, and emotion regulation were investigated as three major factors of intimate relationships for a specific target population of college students. College students, usually between the ages of 18 and 23, face one such period in which they experiment with and solidify their personalities as well as make key decisions related to their intrapersonal identities and interpersonal relationships. In light of this important, perhaps crucial, phase in terms of college students' formations of personality and relationships, the present study will focus on how college students' gender identity and adult attachment patterns affect their emotion regulation during self-evaluation.;In order to investigate the dynamic among the factors, three sets of questionnaires: the Relationship Scales Questionnaire (RSQ), the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), and the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) were administrated to measure the interactions. Path analysis was applied to determine both direct and indirect effects of gender role identity and adult attachment on emotion regulation.;Most of the hypothesized paths were proved to be consistent with the prior literature studies; however, for those paths that were not correspondent to the prior studies, the results revealed the changing phenomenon and new trend of contemporaries with respect of their patterns of gender role identity, attachment style as well as the strategies they used while regulating their emotions. The study is expected to provide a comprehensive understanding of where individuals are located on direct or indirect pathways to emotion regulation strategies to researchers and educators with different viewpoints to interpret and analyze college students' identity patterns and relationship issues.