This study investigated the relationship between emotion regulation, academic social behavior, and academic engagement among college students. A total of 292 students, aged 18 to 59 years (M = 24.13, SD = 6.94), completed an online survey including the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), the Inventory of Academic Social Behavior (ICSA), and the Academic Engagement Scale (EEA). Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s and Spearman’s correlations, ANOVA, and mediation models using PROCESS for SPSS (5,000 bootstrap resamples) were performed. Results showed that higher levels of emotion regulation were associated with greater academic engagement and more frequent positive social behaviors, particularly academic efficacy and appropriate classroom behavior. Furthermore, academic engagement fully mediated the relationship between emotion regulation and disruptive classroom behavior, indicating that students with higher emotion regulation reported less indiscipline when more engaged in academic activities. These findings suggest that academic engagement is a key mechanism through which emotion regulation influences social behavior in higher education.