The effect of university students' levels of emotional autonomy on the levels of cognitive flexibility, romantic relationship satisfaction and gender role

In this study, it is aimed to examine the cognitive flexibility, romantic relationship satisfaction and gender roles as the predictors of university students' emotional autonomy, and also to understand whether their emotional autonomy differs significantly according to the demographic variables determined. The study was conducted with the data collected by snowball sampling method from 449 (265 female, 184 male) students studying at Çukurova University. Data on emotional autonomy of students were collected through "Worthington Autonomy Scale", data on cognitive flexibility were collected through "Cognitive Flexibility Scale", data on romantic relationship satisfaction were collected "Relationship Satisfaction Scale" and data on gender roles were collected through "Gender Roles Attitude Scale" and demographic (personal) information were collected through the ''Personal Information Form'' created by the researcher. In the analysis of the data obtained, IBM SPSS 22 program was used, Independent Groups t-Test, One-Way Analysis of Variance, Multiple Regression Analysis were used in the analysis process. Considering the findings of the research; it was found that cognitive flexibility and romantic relationship satisfaction significantly predicted emotional autonomy, and both variables were positively related to emotional autonomy; On the other hand, it was concluded that gender roles did not significantly predict emotional autonomy. In addition, while emotional autonomy shows a significant difference according to gender; It was found that emotional autonomy did not differ significantly according to the place of residence where participants lived with their family, education level and duration of romantic relationship. Keywords: Emotional autonomy, cognitive flexibility, romantic relationship satisfaction, gender roles.