Believing emotions are uncontrollable is linked to eating disorder psychopathology via suppression and reappraisal

OBJECTIVE: Research suggests that beliefs about emotional controllability influence the use of emotion regulation strategies, which in turn impact psychological health and illness. However, no research has yet investigated whether emotional controllability is linked to eating psychopathology. The current study investigates whether these concepts are related, as individuals with eating disorders have problems with emotion regulation. METHOD: We collected self-report data from 718 participants from a community sample using validated questionnaires, and ran mediational analyses to assess the relationship between emotional controllability and eating psychopathology, via reappraisal and suppression, two emotion regulation strategies. RESULTS: Our mediational analyses suggest that believing emotions to be uncontrollable relates to high levels of suppression (β = −.08), low levels of reappraisal (β = .19) and poorer eating disorder psychopathology (β = −.11). Reappraisal and suppression were found to partially mediate the relationship between emotional controllability and eating psychopathology. DISCUSSION: The current study has demonstrated relationships that support investigations relating emotional controllability, emotion regulation and psychological health. This research has potential implications for developing interventions to target beliefs about emotions in order to help improve emotion regulation skills and eating psychopathology. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40337-021-00395-8.