Relations among family communication, cognitive flexibility, and happiness in Turkish adults: a longitudinal mediation model

Family relationships and family life are important protective factors for psychological health. Establishing healthy communication between members of a family is important for the happiness of individuals. There are several cross-sectional findings regarding family communication in the literature. A longitudinal design was used to examine the mediating effect of cognitive flexibility in the relationship between family communication and happiness, taking into consideration the limitations of the cross-sectional design. In this study, data from the Turkish adult sample (N = 277) was collected in two waves at four-month intervals. The ages of the sample group [195 (70.4%) female and 82 (29.6%) male] are between 20 and 55. The average age was calculated as 29.66 (SD = 8.27). We used the cross-lagged panel model for the half-longitudinal mediation model for testing mediation with two time points at four-month intervals. The findings revealed that the variables of the study had significant longitudinal associations, and cognitive flexibility played a longitudinal mediating role in the relationship between family communication and happiness. The current results prove the importance of healthy relationships among family members and highlight the significant influence of family communication and cognitive flexibility on happiness.