Impact of Cognitive and Decision Making Style on Resilience: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Resilience refers to successful adaptation of an individual despite risk, acute stressors, and chronic adversities. Resilient students are more determined and they can enhance their efforts especially under difficult situations. Students need to be more resilient so that they can bounce back from the loads of pressures and adversities they encounter in studies. In this context there is a need to understand the resilient quality of students against his/her cognitive styles and thinking pattern. With this assumption, a research is designed to examine the relationship of cognitive and decision making styles with resilience of students of different departments. A sample of 152 students was selected randomly between the age group of 20 - 25 years from different departments of university of Gujrat, Pakistan. Correlation and Regression analysis were conducted to examine the relationship and impact of cognitive and decision making styles on Resilience. Results showed that resilience has a positive association with cognitive style whereas; there exists no relationship with decision making style. Furthermore, the systematic and intuitive cognitive styles have shown positive correlation with resilience. Finally, the cognitive styles have shown significant influence on resilience. The study concludes with the implication of resilience in the academics and approaches to enhance resilience in students.

Keywords: Cognitive Styles, Decision Making, Resilience and Students