The Role of Social Skills and the Family Emotional Atmosphere in Social Problem Solving: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Flexibility

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of cognitive flexibility in social problemsolving, social skills and familie’s emotional atmosphere. Participants included 200 subjects (100 boys and 100 girls) from sixth grade elementary students in Shiraz who were selected by random cluster sampling. For data collection, was used Emotional Family Atmosphere Scale (Heil Burn, 1964), measures of social skills Matson (1983), Social Problem Solving Inventory (D’Zurilla, Nezu, Maydeu and Olivarse, 2002) and Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (Dennis and Vander Wal, 2010). . Data were analized by Path analysis with AMOS software and model parameters were extracted. The present results showed that the model fits very desirable and therefore the model was confirmed. Results showed that social skills predict positive and meaningful social problem solving. Also Social skills and Familie’s Emotional Atmosphere predicst a positive and meaningful cognitive flexibility. On the other hand the social problem solving predict the cognitive flexibility. But the relationship between familie’s emotional atmosphere and social problem-solving was not significant.But the mediating role of cognitive flexibility in socialproblem solving, social skills and familie’s emotional atmospherewas confirmed.

Keywords

• social problem solving
• social skills
• familie’s emotional atmosphere
• cognitive flexibility