Cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance and five-factor personality traits as predictors of the complexity of political thought in university students

This research, which aims to examine the predictive effects of cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance, and the big five-factor personality traits on the complexity of political thought in university students, was designed under the quantitative research methodology. However, this research also has a relational research type, which is a part of the quantitative research methodology. With the current research, firstly, the relationship patterns between the variables of cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance, the big five-factor personality traits and the complexity of political thought were tried to be determined. After determining significant relationships between these variables, the predictive effects of cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance, and the big five-factor personality traits on the complexity of political thought were examined on a regression basis. The research population consists of undergraduate students studying at Turkish universities in the 2022-2023 academic year. In this context, university students studying in different faculties and departments in 7 different universities constituted the sample of the study. In this study, aiming to investigate the predictive effects of cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance and the big five-factor personality traits on the complexity of political thought in undergraduate students, a scale battery consisting of a total of five different measurement tools, which are the Personal Information Form, the Complexity of Political Thought Scale, the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory, the Cognitive Avoidance Scale, and the Five-Factor Personality Inventory, was employed to collect research data in line with the research hypotheses. In the analysis process of the data, descriptive statistical analyzes and t-Test for Independent Groups, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation and Simple Linear Regression analysis were utilized depending on the normality of the data. The research determined that the complexity levels of the political thoughts of the participants differed significantly by such variables as gender, monthly average expenditure and political ideology. It was also found that there were significant relationships between the complexity of political thought, cognitive flexibility and cognitive avoidance levels of the participants. Furthermore, it was seen that the relationship determined in the research was positive and significant between the complexity of political thought and cognitive flexibility, while it was negative and moderate between the complexity of political thought and cognitive avoidance. Finally, the study revealed that the complexity of the political thoughts of the university students was positively predicted by cognitive flexibility and significantly negatively predicted by cognitive avoidance.