Beyond the more-is-better assumption: latent profiles of visual arts engagement, emotion regulation, and mental health among Chinese non-art-major university students.

Although visual arts engagement is widely regarded as beneficial for psychological health, more frequent participation may not always correspond to more favorable outcomes. This cross-sectional survey identified latent profiles of visual arts engagement among 586 Chinese non-art-major university students and examined their associations with subjective well-being, psychological distress, and emotion regulation. Latent profile analysis was based on four engagement dimensions: active creation, receptive appreciation, digital engagement, and social/learning involvement. Profile differences were tested using Welch's ANOVA, Games-Howell post hoc comparisons, BCH sensitivity analyses, and parallel statistical indirect association models including cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. A four-profile solution was retained as a parsimonious person-centered representation of a graded engagement continuum, distinguishing very low, low, moderate, and high visual arts engagement. Students in the high-engagement profile reported the lowest subjective well-being and the highest depression, anxiety, stress, and overall psychological distress. Continuous-model sensitivity analyses indicated that profile membership did not provide significant explanatory value beyond continuous quadratic or spline specifications of overall engagement. In the statistical indirect association models, emotion-regulation variables were statistically involved in associations between moderate and high engagement profiles and mental health outcomes. However, the substantial overlap between cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression limits strategy-specific interpretation of their mutually adjusted coefficients. Because all data were cross-sectional and self-reported, these findings describe association patterns rather than temporal or causal effects. They motivate future research on the emotional function, motivation, and quality of visual arts engagement rather than supporting conclusions about these unmeasured features in the present study.