Components of hot and cold executive functions and their relations to different forms of stress resilience: A systematic review

Abstract

Increasing evidence points out that Executive Functions (i.e., EFs) may be core mechanisms for the generation of resilient responses to adversity. A systematic review testing the relations between either affective (hot) and/or non-affective (cold) EFs (i.e., inhibition, flexibility and working memory updating) and resilience was conducted. A total of 449 articles were initially identified. After two steps of title-and-abstract (k = 449), and full-text reading filtering (k = 67), 11 studies were reviewed. Three studies included cold measures of working memory and supported significant positive relations between higher working memory functioning and higher trait resilience levels. One study included cold measures of inhibition and another one both hot and cold measures, with only the first one supporting a positive relation between more efficient inhibition and higher trait resilience levels. Finally, 7 studies measured flexibility in its cold and/or hot dimensions and overall supported significant relations between higher flexibility and higher levels of trait, process and outcome resilience measures. These results support the role of EFs performance to promote different forms of resilience. This review allows to identify different issues that need to be addressed in future research and highlight the need to integrate the analysis of all hot and cold EFs components to understand their role in the generation of resilience.