Self-compassion and social anxiety: The mediating effect of emotion regulation strategies and the influence of depressed mood.

Objectives: Self-compassion constitutes a positive way of relating towards the self that enables emotional regulation and reduces emotional distress. This research first explored differences among a sample of persons with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and groups of high socially anxious (HSA) and low socially anxious (LSA) students on self-compassion, emotion regulation, and social anxiety. We then investigated emotional regulation as a mediator of the prediction of social anxiety by self-compassion and the influence of depressed mood on those relationships.