From Emotion Regulation Difficulties to Loneliness over Time: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Mediation Test of Social Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms.

Loneliness has increasingly become a focal point of empirical research. In identifying psychological vulnerabilities associated with loneliness, emotion regulation difficulties have emerged as a potential risk factor. While a robust association between emotion dysregulation and loneliness is well established, longitudinal evidence remains limited. To address this gap, we surveyed a community sample (N = 492 at baseline; 374 women; Mage = 25.47 years; n = 368 at T2, n = 229 at T3) over six months, with assessments at three time points. We tested a three-wave, time-separated mediation model examining the prospective associations between baseline emotion regulation difficulties and loneliness assessed six months later, with social anxiety and depressive symptoms at T2 specified as parallel mediators. After adjusting for prior levels of the focal constructs and concurrent associations among T2 variables, baseline emotion regulation difficulties predicted higher levels of social anxiety and depressive symptoms at T2. Only social anxiety at T2 was associated with loneliness at T3, and the indirect association from baseline emotion regulation difficulties to loneliness at T3 was supported through social anxiety. These findings suggest that emotion dysregulation may be linked to later loneliness primarily via elevated social anxiety, highlighting the value of intervention approaches that target emotion regulation skills and social anxiety in efforts to reduce loneliness.