Objective      investigate the mental status and its relationship with emotion regulation and cognitive bias in a troop of recruits during training.   Methods       Psychological stress selfevaluation test (PSET)

positive and negative affect scale (PANAS)

emotion regulation scale (ERS) and attention to positive and negative inventory scale (APNIS) were applied to the investigation of 1 600 recruits during training.     Results       T score of PSET in the recruits was 50.04±10.00. The recruits with different cultural levels had significant differences in psychological stress (F=3.25

P0.05). The recruits with higher psychological stress levels had higher negative emotion

negative cognitive bias and expression suppression (P0.01)

but lower positive emotion

positive cognitive bias and cognitive reappraisal than the ones with lower psychological stress levels(P0.01). The total score of psychological stress was negatively correlated with positive emotion

positive cognitive bias and cognitive reappraisal (r=-0.49

-0.32 and -0.21

respectively

P0.01)

but was positively correlated with negative emotion

negative cognitive bias and expression suppression (r=0.48

0.34 and 0.12

respectively

P0.01). Positive emotion

negative emotion

positive cognitive bias and negative cognitive bias were important predictors of psychological stress

and could explain 37.6% variance of psychological stress. Cognitive reappraisal regulated the relationship between positive emotion and psychological stress.    Conclusion         There are close correlations between the psychological stress levels and the characteristics of emotional experience and emotion regulation in the recruits. Active psychological training and emotion regulation training will help to reduce psychological stress levels during the training of the recruits

and promote mental health.