Are Metacognitive Abilities Associated with Emotion Regulation?

Emotion regulation and metacognition are two key self-regulatory capacities that contribute significantly to psychological functioning. Emotion regulation involves the strategies individuals use to influence their emotional experiences, whereas metacognition refers to the capacity to reflect on and monitor one’s own mental processes. Both constructs have been the focus of extensive research and are associated with important cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Although theoretical models propose that self-monitoring is a fundamental component of emotion regulation, the empirical link between emotion regulation strategies and metacognitive ability remains poorly understood. This preregistered study (N = 200) investigated the association between self-reported emotion regulation strategies, specifically reappraisal and suppression, and metacognitive ability, which we assessed using a visual discrimination task paired with confidence ratings. We also included self-reported emotional intelligence and rumination as control variables. Our findings indicate that better metacognitive ability is associated with lower use of suppression, but shows no relationship with reappraisal. These results suggest that metacognitive processes may play a meaningful role in shaping how individuals regulate their emotions.