Clarifying Cognitive Flexibility from a Self-regulatory Perspective

摘要

Cognitive flexibility is a definitionally varied construct utilized across disciplines that revolves around an individual's ability to suitably adjust to changes in a task-based context [5]. The diversity of disciplines exploring cognitive flexibility have resulted in a number of operationalizations that function more or less optimally depending upon the context in which the construct is measured. Each measurement technique holds both promise toward explicating the nature of this construct while simultaneously stalling progress, as crosstalk between disciplines is stilted. To support this effort in understanding how cognitive flexibility arises, the link between it and self-regulation is structurally explored. This paper reviews findings throughout the literature (1) for different cognitive flexibility definitions and measures (e.g., the Wisconsin Card Sort Task [8], Trail Making Test [19], Cognitive Flexibility Scale [14]), (2) across multiple disciplines (e.g., psychology, management, communications), and (3) within various populations (e.g., clinical, adolescents, young adults, older adults) in an effort to initiate conversation about increasing sensitivity of utilized measures to better analyze and understand results between cognitive flexibility and other key constructs relevant to a work environment (e.g., learning [23]). Lastly, this paper proposes an explanatory link between cognitive flexibility and self-regulation, utilizing Sitzman and Ely's [22] parsimonious framework of self-regulatory learning constructs and Pintrich's [17] four phases of self-regulation as applicable to each measure. This work lays the groundwork for advancing the science underpinning this construct.