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Cognitive flexibility and social adjustment in daily life among children: The role of perceived social support

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Abstract

This study investigates the link between cognitive flexibility and children’s social adjustment, focusing on the mediating role of perceived social support. A sample of 185 elementary school children, aged 9–14, participated in a 10-day ambulatory assessment, completing daily paper-and-pen questionnaires at 16:00. Cognitive flexibility was evaluated using a shortened version of the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI), and other constructs, including emotion regulation, perceived stress, and social engagement, were measured through specially designed questionnaires. Results indicated that cognitive flexibility correlates with perceived social support and social adjustment at the between-person level, but not significantly at the within-person level. Furthermore, perceived social support was found to mediate the relationship between cognitive flexibility and various aspects of social adjustment, including positive and negative emotions and perceived stress. These findings underscore the importance of enhancing perceived social support to leverage cognitive flexibility for improved social adjustment in elementary school students.

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Data Availability

The data supporting the findings of this research are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Our sincere appreciation is extended to Zh Yeng CHONG for her valuable contributions in refining the linguistic precision of our manuscript's final draft.

Funding

This work was supported by the [National Natural Science Foundation of China] under Grant [number 31800929]; and [Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities] under Grant [2020NTSS42].

The manuscript does not contain clinical studies and code availability. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Dan Chen & Wei Xu

  2. School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210097, China

    Xue Wen

  3. College of Business, Florida International University, Miami, FL, 32611, USA

    Yuyang Zhou

  4. College of Business, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Qian Zhang

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  1. Dan Chen
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Correspondence to Wei Xu.

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Chen, D., Wen, X., Zhou, Y. et al. Cognitive flexibility and social adjustment in daily life among children: The role of perceived social support. Curr Psychol 43, 18463–18473 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05613-5

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