Aggression and Somatic Symptoms: the Role of Emotion Regulation and Distress Tolerance.

Abstract

The current study used a longitudinal design (via three biweekly assessments) to assess the association of state aggression and somatic symptoms and the potential role of trait emotion regulation and distress tolerance in these associations in a sample of 186 college students. Multilevel modeling was used to examine the influence of state psychological aggression and state physical aggression on somatic symptoms (i.e., within-person variables) and the moderation of emotion regulation and distress tolerance (i.e., between-person variables) on the relation between aggression and somatic symptoms. The results indicated that state psychological aggression was positively associated with somatic symptoms. Emotion regulation moderated the influence of psychological aggression on somatic symptoms, in which psychological aggression was associated with somatic symptoms among those who reported medium and high levels of difficulties in emotion regulation, but not those with low levels of difficulties in emotion regulation. Distress tolerance did not moderate the association between aggression and somatic symptoms. The current findings speak to the importance of including the assessment of psychological aggression in health promotion programs and medical visits and identifying emotion regulation as a treatment marker for those with somatic symptoms.