Cognitive emotion regulation as a statistical mediator of the association between autistic traits and academic performance in university students

Abstract

This study examined whether adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies showed indirect effects in the association between autistic traits and academic performance in university students. A sample of 279 undergraduates (54.1% female; M age=23.92 years, SD = 1.44) completed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10), scored continuously on a 1–4 response scale to preserve individual differences in this non-clinical sample, and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). Academic performance was measured approximately four months later using end-of-semester examination scores. A parallel mediation model was tested using the PROCESS macro (Model 4) with age as a covariate and bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals based on 5,000 resamples. Autistic traits were negatively associated with academic performance. Both adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation showed significant indirect effects in this association, with the maladaptive pathway showing a substantially larger indirect effect. The direct effect of autistic traits on academic performance remained significant after accounting for both emotion regulation variables, consistent with partial statistical mediation. These findings suggest that maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation represents a potentially modifiable pathway linking autistic traits to academic difficulties, with implications for developing targeted intervention programs in higher education.