The relationships of executive functions with cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological resilience

The aim of this study is to examine whether executive functions of working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility are related to cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological resilience. The study sample consisted of 80 volunteers between ages of 20-45, who did not have any psychiatric or neurological conditions, did not use medication that could affect their cognitive functions, and graduated from at least high school. SCL-90 total score was used to determine exclusion criteria when selecting participants. Cognitive emotion regulation and Connor-Davidson resilience scales were used to determine the emotion regulation strategies and psychological resilience levels of the participants; N-2 back, stop signal, and task switching paradigms were used to evaluate working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility performance, respectively. The data obtained were analyzed by correlation, regression, and mediation analysis. In line with the findings obtained, it was observed that inhibitory control had a significant positive correlation with the acceptance emotion regulation strategy, which is one of the adaptive strategies, and cognitive flexibility had a significant positive correlation with both adaptive emotion regulation strategies and also with the refocus on planning and positive refocusing strategies. In addition, according to the findings obtained through mediation analysis, it was found that positive refocusing and refocus on planning adaptive emotion regulation strategies had full mediating variable roles in the relationship between cognitive flexibility and psychological resilience.