45 Relationship between cognitive flexibility, family resilience and parents’ transformative learning experiences Camelia-Liliana PAVEL * Abstract: This paper focuses on pinpointing the existence of a relationship between the variables family resilience, cognitive flexibility and parents’ transformative learning experiences. Findings (after applying the questionnaire to 100 parents) show a significant correlation between perceived transformative learning and family resilience, but cognitive flexibility does not associate with family resilience (though it does correlate with resilience in general) or with parents’ transformative learning in their relationship with the child. Giving a meaning to the problematic experience is a common point between the variables that correlate positively. Keywords: family resilience, cognitive flexibility, meaning-making, transformative learning, Pearson’s correlation. Introduction Throughout their lifetime, most people go through stressful situations or through situations that are viewed like as threat. Some of them experience major pain as response to these events that they cannot get over or from which they recover with much difficulty, while others suffer less and they manage to adapt when facing adversity. The three variables within this paper – family resilience, cognitive flexibility and transformative learning – are analyzed in relation to their importance as mental health predictors. When facing potentially stressful situations, resilient individuals that show high cognitive flexibility can reframe the way they approach the problem, they can find multiple ways of responding to adversity or they do not see the situations as stressful. Resilient individuals are those people who can successfully maintain good mental health when facing challenges and adversities such as economic struggles (Werner & Smith, 1992), terrorist attacks (Fredickson, Tugade, Waugh & Larkin, 2003, p. 366) and daily life stressors (Ong, Bergeman, Bisconti & Wallana, 2006, p. 731; Bonanno, 2004). However, only few studies investigated the way in which cognitive flexibility is related to the capacity of being resilient. Kashdan and Rottenberg (2010, pp. 866-868) reviewed the studies showing that good mental health and resilience are characterized by psychological flexibility and vice versa, poor mental health is characterized by psychological rigidity. * PhD Fellow, SOP HRD/159/1.5/S/133675 Project, Romanian Academy Iasi Branch, Romania, “Al. I. Cuza” University, camelia_pavel77@yahoo.com.