Exploring the Impact of Emotional and Cognitive Factors on Anxiety Symptoms of Chinese Adolescents: a Serial Mediation Study

The onset age of anxiety is decreasing worldwide, yet the majority of the study conducted on anxiety were focused on adult populations. This study aimed to investigate the mediating effect of psychological capital and coping style tendency on the relationship between emotional intelligence and anxiety in Chinese adolescents and provide empirical evidence for research and prevention. A cross-sectional study recruited 5747 participants from 5 randomly selected middle schools in the northeast China. Study results showed that high emotional intelligence (P < 0.05), high level of psychological capital (P < 0.05), and positive coping style tendency (P < 0.05) were correlated to lower level of anxiety symptoms in adolescents. Psychological capital and coping style tendency performed partial and serial mediating effect on the relationship between emotional intelligence and anxiety. Teaching adolescents how to regulate emotions can strengthens their positive mentalities, promotes the use of positive coping strategies, and then attenuates the severity of anxiety symptoms in a nonadditive manner.