The importance of meta-emotional beliefs: Secondary emotions mediate links between emotion uselessness beliefs and transdiagnostic psychopathology.

Abstract

Emotion regulation difficulties are widely recognised as transdiagnostic mechanisms underlying emotional disorders, yet the role of beliefs about the usefulness of emotions remains underexplored. This study investigated whether beliefs that emotions are useless contribute to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders via secondary emotions (i.e. emotions about emotions, such as feeling guilty about feeling angry). A large sample of students (N = 1036) completed validated self-report measures assessing emotion beliefs (EBQ), secondary emotions (DERS), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), and eating psychopathology (EDE-Q). Participants with high levels of psychological distress showed significantly stronger emotion uselessness beliefs (η² = .01) and elevated secondary emotions (η²=.16). Mediation analyses revealed secondary emotions significantly mediated relationships between uselessness beliefs and all three conditions, with complete mediation for eating psychopathology. These findings suggest that viewing emotions as harmful or pointless may lead to maladaptive emotional responses, which in turn contribute to psychological distress. The results support the conceptualisation of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders as emotional disorders with shared underlying mechanisms and highlight the potential of transdiagnostic interventions targeting emotion beliefs and secondary emotions to improve treatment efficiency across diverse clinical presentations.