Role of hope and cognitive flexibility in the relationship between object relations and coping strategies

This study aims to investigate the mediating role of dispositional hope and cognitive flexibility in the relationship between university students' object relations and reality testing processes and their coping attitudes. Participants, selected using appropriate sampling methods, comprised 629 volunteering students from various Turkish universities who completed questionnaires online. The instruments included the Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory, Coping Attitudes Assessment Scale, Dispositional Hope Scale, and Cognitive Flexibility Scale. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. The findings revealed that cognitive flexibility and hope significantly mediate the relationship between object relations and reality testing with problem-focused and dysfunctional coping attitudes, but not with emotion-focused coping attitudes. There was no significant relationship between the studied variables and gender or age. Object relations and reality testing significantly predicted problem-focused and dysfunctional coping attitudes but did not predict emotion-focused coping attitudes. The study's limitations and recommendations for future research and practice were discussed.