Cognitive Flexibility and Emotion Regulation as Transdiagnostic Mechanisms of Psychopathology in Clinically-Referred Youths

Abstract

An increasing amount of reports sound the alarm about our youngsters mental health state. Research on transdiagnostic mechanisms is needed. Recently, attention has been drawn to the role of cognitive flexibility (CF; the ability to adapt thoughts and behavior to contextual changes), as a possible risk factor for psychopathological development, yet research among children and adolescents is scarce. We hypothesize both direct and indirect links whereby (mal)adaptive emotion regulation strategies might mediate this relationship. Results of this study with 192 clinically-referred children and adolescents (65% female; mean age = 12.65; SD = 2.99) indicated that CF was related to both internalizing and externalizing symptoms. However, this relationship was not mediated by adaptive or maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. Implications for theory, clinical practice and future research are discussed.