Cognitive Flexibility

Cognitive Flexibility is the ability to appropriately adapt our thinking processes and behaviour to face new and unexpected conditions in the environment. This includes the ability to both address and interpret the new situation and restructure our thinking in order to adapt our behavioural strategies accordingly. It is also about knowing when it is appropriate to be broad and expansive in our thinking and when a situation requires detailed and focussed attention.

Greater Cognitive Flexibility is associated with favourable outcomes such as better reading abilities in childhood, higher resilience to negative life events and stress in adulthood, higher levels of creativity in adulthood, and better quality of life in older individuals. Flexible thinking is also considered essential for working with social diversity.

Cognitive Flexibility in Action The person will be able to:

• Change their views when they receive additional information.
• Approach a problem from a new angle
• Consider alternative points of view.
• Handle several sources of information simultaneously.
• Engage in multiple activities simultaneously.
• Tolerate confusion and ambiguity.
• Foresee a range of consequences.
• Think up multiple problem solving strategies.