Executive Functioning and Distress Tolerance: A Moderating Role of Age and Family System

Abstract

The current research was aimed to explore the moderating role of age and family system in the association with deficits in executive functioning and distress tolerance in university students. The cross-sectional research design was used and a stratified sample of 170 university students was taken in terms of gender, family system, and age. Barkley Deficit in Executive Functioning Scale (Barkley, 2012) and Distress Tolerance Scale (Azhar et al., 2018) was given to participants with a demographics sheet. The result of the study claimed that deficits in executive functioning, age and family system were significant positive predictors of distress tolerance in university students. Moreover, in early adulthood, the conditional effect of deficits in executive functioning on distress tolerance was more statistically significant than in middle adulthood. However, the effect was nonsignificant in late adulthood. Furthermore, the conditional effect of deficits in executive functioning on distress tolerance is significant in university students from nuclear family system and non-significant in students from joint family system. The study would be helpful to understand the issues of university students and to provide counselling to them. Besides, early and timely identification of risk and protective factors of deficits in executive functioning would prevent serious consequences in university students.