The moderated mediation role of metacognitions and ways of coping in the relationship between psychological resilience and anxiety

One of the purposes of this study was to examine the relationships between anxiety, psychological resilience, ways of coping, and pathological metacognition. The second purpose was to evaluate the moderated mediating role of pathological metacognition and ways of coping in the relationship between psychological resilience and anxiety. Within the scope of the study, data was collected from 445 individuals of whom 292 (65.6%) were females and 153 (34.4%) were males. The participants completed Demographic Information Form, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Resilience Scale for Adults, the Ways of Coping Inventory and the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30. Correlation analyses were conducted to evaluate the relationships between anxiety, psychological resilience, ways of coping, and pathological metacognitions; hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to see the predictive power of the variables on anxiety and moderated mediation analyses were conducted to evaluate the moderated mediator roles of pathological metacognitions and ways of coping. According to the correlation analyses, there was no statistically significant relationship between pathological metacognitions and ways of coping. Correlation coefficients related to other relationships ranged between .10 and .61. According to the regression results psychological resilience, pathological metacognitions, and ways of coping explained 58% of the variance of anxiety. Finally, the findings indicated that pathological metacognitions had a mediating role in the relationship between psychological resilience and anxiety, and that emotional coping moderated this mediation. Taking all the findings of the current study together, it can be argued that psychological resilience, pathological metacognitions, and ways of coping are important factors in explaining anxiety and that working on these variables especially in a therapeutical context can be beneficial.