The mediating role of cognitive flexibility in the relationship between self-compassion and resilience in secondary school students

This study aimed to examine the mediating role of cognitive flexibility in the relationship between self-compassion and resilience in secondary school students. The study also examined whether the variables of self-compassion, resilience and cognitive flexibility differ according to gender, age, mother's education level, father's education level, parents' relationship status, mother's survival status, father's survival status. The study group of the research includes a total of 1030 secondary school students, 545 girls (52.9%) and 485 boys (47.1%), who continue their education in the city of Trabzon in the 2023-2024 academic year. Data of the research; It was collected with the "Personal Information Form", "Child and Adolescent Resilience Scale (CGPSS-12)", "Self-Compassion Scale Short Form" and "Cognitive Flexibility Scale". In the study, the relationships between self-compassion, resilience and cognitive flexibility were examined by correlation analysis. Hayes Process Macro (2013) analysis was carried out to determine whether cognitive flexibility played a mediating role in the relationship between resilience and self-compassion. Direct and indirect effects in the mediator models targeted to be tested were determined by the bootstrap method. In the light of the relevant literature, mediation models were established and the mediating role of cognitive flexibility was tested accordingly. In addition, whether the levels of self-compassion, resilience and cognitive flexibility differ significantly according to gender, parents' relationship status, mother's survival status, father's survival status were determined by t-test for independent samples, age variable correlation analysis, mother's educational status, father's status. Educational status was analyzed with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). SPSS 23.0 package program was used to analyze the data. As a result of the analyses, it was determined that cognitive flexibility had a significant mediating role in the relationship between self-compassion and resilience in secondary school students. According to another result obtained in the study; While the resilience scores of secondary school students showed a significant difference in terms of gender, age, and parental relationship variables, it was determined that there was no significant difference according to the variables of mother's education level, father's education level, mother's survival status, and father's survival status. While self-compassion scores showed a significant difference in terms of gender, age, parental relationship status, mother's survival status, father's survival status, it was determined that there were no significant differences according to the variables of mother's education level and father's education level. It was concluded that while cognitive flexibility scores showed a significant difference in terms of gender, age, parental relationship status, and mother's survival status, there was no significant difference in terms of mother's education level, father's education level and father's survival status variables. The findings were discussed in the context of the relevant literature.