Association Among Mothers’ Loneliness, Cognitive Flexibility, and Children’s Social Competence: Moderated Mediating Effect of Mothers’ Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Daily Lives

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to explore the association among mothers’ loneliness, cognitive flexibility, and children’s social competence, and examine the moderated mediating effect of mothers’ perceived impact of COVID-19 on daily lives on the relationships.Methods: Data were collected from 315 mothers having three-to-five-year-old children through an online survey. Preliminary analyses were conducted using descriptive statistics. In addition, the mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation effects were examined using the SPSS Process macro 3.5 and the analysis considered children’s age, sex, and birth order as covariates.Results: The findings can be summarized as follows: First, mothers’ loneliness had a significant negative effects on their cognitive flexibility and children’s social competence, and the partial mediation effect of mothers’ cognitive flexibility on the association between their loneliness and children’s social competence was significant. Second, mothers’ perceived impact of COVID-19 significantly moderated the effect of their loneliness on children’s social competence. Third, mothers’ perceived impact of COVID-19 also significantly moderated the effect of their cognitive flexibility on children’s social competence. Lastly, there was a significant moderated mediation effect of mothers’ perceived impact of COVID-19 on the relationship in which mothers’ loneliness affected children’s social competence mediated by their cognitive flexibility.Conclusion: These findings empirically confirmed the association among mothers’ loneliness, cognitive flexibility, and children’s social competence in a comprehensive framework, suggesting the importance of mothers’ emotional and cognitive factors in order to understand young children’s social competence in the current pandemic situations.