Relationship between perceived parenting attitudes, resilience, and life satisfaction in adolescents: The mediating role of cognitive flexibility and hope level

The aim of this study is to evaluate the mediating roles of hope and cognitive flexibility in the relationships between adolescents' perceived parenting attitudes and resilience levels. 399 high school students from Eskişehir province participated in the study in the 2024–2025 academic year. Demographic Information Form, Parenting Attitude Scale, Trait Hope Scale, Cognitive Flexibility Inventory, Child and Adolescent Psychological Resilience Scale, Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale were applied to the participants via online surveys. The data were evaluated using two different models with a mediator analysis (Model 4) conducted using PROCESS Macro 4.2 (Hayes, 2022). In the models, acceptance/involvement, psychological autonomy, and strictness/supervision sub-dimensions of the Parenting Attitude Scale were considered as independent variables; hope and cognitive flexibility were considered as mediator variables; and resilience and life satisfaction were considered as dependent variables. Also, resilience was used as the dependent variable in the first model, while life satisfaction was used as the dependent variable in the second model. In the first model, the direct relationship between acceptance/involvement, psychological autonomy, and strictness/supervision dimensions and resilience is significant in a positive direction. As perceived acceptance/involvement, psychological autonomy, and strictness/supervision increase, resilience also increases. Hope and cognitive flexibility have a significant indirect effect in the acceptance/involvement, while hope and cognitive flexibility do not have a mediating role in the psychological autonomy and strictness/supervision. As perceived acceptance/involvement increases, cognitive flexibility and hope increase, resulting in higher resilience. In the second model, the direct relationship between acceptance/involvement, psychological autonomy, and strictness/supervision and life satisfaction is significant in a positive direction. As these dimensions increase, life satisfaction also increases. There is a significant indirect effect of hope in the acceptance/involvement and strictness/supervision. As perceived acceptance/involvement increases, hope increases; resulting higher life satisfaction. As perceived strictness/supervision increases, the level of hope decreases; resulting in lower life satisfaction. In the psychological autonomy, hope and cognitive flexibility do not have a mediating role. The results suggest that parenting styles can have direct and indirect relationships through individual psychological resources on adolescents' resilience and life satisfaction. These findings suggest that a parenting approach that includes warmth, autonomy support, and supervision can play an important role in promoting resilience and life satisfaction. Keywords: Resilience, parenting attitudes, hope, cognitive flexibility