The role of intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive flexibility, and perceived social support in emerging adults' career stress

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of cognitive processes such as intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive flexibility and perceived social support on career stress of emerging adults, to examine the mediating role of intolerance of uncertainty between cognitive flexibility and career stress, to examine the regulatory role of perceived social support in the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and career stress, and to examine the career stress of emerging adults in terms of demographic variables. The study group of the research, which was conducted in the relational survey model, consisted of 562 university students, 446 of whom were female and 116 of whom were male, aged between 18-25 in the 2022-2023 academic year. "Personal Information Form", "Career Stress Scale", "Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IU-12)", "Cognitive Flexibility Inventory" and "Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale" were used to collect data and data were collected through online forms. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, Multiple Regression Analysis, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Independent Samples t-Test, Kruskall Wallis-H Test, Mann Whitney-U Test, Process Macro Model 4 and Model 1 were used in data analysis. SPSS 22.0 package program and Process Macro plug-in for SPSS were used for the analyses. According to the results of the analysis, it was determined that intolerance to uncertainty, cognitive flexibility and perceived social support significantly predicted career stress and these variables together explained 22% of the total variance in career stress variable. The relative order of importance was determined to be intolerance of uncertainty, multidimensional perceived social support and cognitive flexibility. According to the mediation model tested, it was determined that intolerance of uncertainty is a partial mediator in the relationship between cognitive flexibility and career stress. According to the tested moderation analysis, it was determined that perceived social support did not have a significant moderating role in the relationship between intolerance towards uncertainty and career stress. When the relationship between the participants' career stress levels and their ages and whether they differed in terms of demographic variables such as gender, grade level, university type and socioeconomic level were examined, it was seen that the career stress levels of the participants increased as their ages increased. Also it was found that career stress levels differed significantly in terms of gender, grade level, university type and socioeconomic level. The findings were discussed in line with the relevant literature.