Basic psychological needs, emotional regulation and academic stress in university students: a structural model according to branch of knowledge

Abstract

The present study which is descriptive and cross-sectional in nature, pursues the objective of developing a structural equation model which integrates basic psychological needs, emotional regulation and academic stress in a sample composed of 2736 university students [♂ = 33.8% (n = 924); ♀ = 66.2% (n = 1812)] with a mean age of 23.33 ± 5.77 years. The main instruments used were the basic psychological needs scale, the emotional regulation scale and the academic stress questionnaire. Results show a positive relationship between the need of autonomy and the two dimensions of emotional regulation – cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression-. Cognitive reappraisal did not exhibit any relationship within the social science students examined. Further, the needs of autonomy and competence were positively related with cognitive reappraisal, and negatively related with expressive suppression. The greatest correlation strength was revealed in students studying health sciences. Finally, it was revealed that health science students made better use of emotional regulation in order to control academic stress. This highlights the importance of developing emotional regulation and satisfying basic psychological needs within higher education.