Examination of the cognitive flexibility and cognitive emotion regulation strategies of high school students exposed to peer bullying

In this study, it is aimed to examine the relationship between cognitive flexibility levels and cognitive emotion regulation strategies of high school students who were exposed to peer bullying. In addition, it is examined whether these variables differ according to gender, class, school type, school achievement and friendship relations. The sample of the study consists of 400 students, including 114 boys and 286 girls, who are in the first and second year of high school. The data in the study were obtained using "Peer Bullying Scale", "Cognitive Flexibility Scale", "Cognitive Emotion Regulation Scale" and "Personal Information Form" prepared by the researcher. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using the statistics package program for social sciences (SPSS 25) and Kolmogorov Smirnov, Mann-Whitney-U, Kruskal Wallis-H test and Spearman Correlation Analysis, which are suitable for research, were applied to the data. According to some findings obtained from the study, students with poor school success, poor friendship relations and who are studying at Vocational and Technical High Schools are exposed to more bullying. Students with good school success and friendship relationships have higher levels of cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, in the "Refocus on Planning" sub-dimension of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Scale, it was observed that male students and students with high level of friendship relations received higher scores. A moderate negative relationship was found between the Peer Bullying Scale and the scores obtained from the Cognitive Flexibility Scale and positive and negative relationships were found between the Peer Bullying Scale and some sub-dimensions of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Scale. According to the results of the study, as the level of peer bullying increases, the level of cognitive flexibility decreases and the level of using maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies increases. Larger sample group are needed fot the studies on the research subject.