Mindpsychological flexibilityAdults

Why Being Able to Adapt Your Response Matters More Than Feeling Good

A conceptual review argues that psychological flexibility — adapting your thoughts and behaviour to shifting demands — may matter more for health than avoiding negative emotion.

Study title: Why Being Able to Adapt Your Response Matters More Than Feeling Good — Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J., Clinical Psychology Review, 2010

Study type: Systematic review
Population: Synthesis of clinical and social psychology research on adults
Published: 2010
Evidence confidence: Moderate confidence

The short version

Flexibly adapting your response to circumstances, rather than just minimising negative emotion, is repeatedly linked to better mental health.

Why it matters

Wellbeing may depend less on eliminating stress or negative feelings and more on being able to flexibly adjust your response — acting according to values even while uncomfortable, rather than avoiding discomfort altogether.

The question

Is psychological flexibility — the capacity to adapt to situational demands, shift perspective, and balance competing desires — a core ingredient of psychological health across different theoretical traditions?

How it was studied

A conceptual review integrating findings across clinical psychology, personality research, and emotion science, examining how flexibility (versus rigid patterns of avoidance or fixed coping styles) relates to functioning across many life domains.

What they found

The authors argue that across disparate research traditions, greater psychological flexibility — rather than the mere presence or absence of negative emotion — is consistently associated with better mental health, relationship quality, and adaptive coping, while rigid, inflexible patterns (such as chronic avoidance) are linked to poorer outcomes.

Limitations

This is a conceptual/integrative review rather than a meta-analysis with pooled effect sizes, so it draws together varied study designs and measures of 'flexibility' that are not fully standardised, making the overall claim harder to quantify precisely.

What it may mean

In real life

In real life that might mean that pushing through a hard conversation you've been avoiding, even while anxious, is a more useful long-term move than waiting until the anxiety disappears first.

Try this

When you notice yourself avoiding something because of how it feels, try asking whether the avoidance is protecting you or just postponing the discomfort — and take one small step regardless of the feeling.

Evidence confidence

Moderate confidence

This is an influential integrative review pulling from consistent findings across several research traditions, but as a conceptual synthesis rather than a meta-analysis, its central claim isn't reducible to one effect size.

Source

Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Why Being Able to Adapt Your Response Matters More Than Feeling Good. Clinical Psychology Review.

Peer-reviewed · Free full text available · Last reviewed 2026-08-14

Read the original research →

One study isn't the whole storyOne study gives us a piece of the picture. Selfey looks for patterns across the broader evidence rather than treating a single finding as a rule.

Selfey research briefs are educational summaries, not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Research describes patterns across groups; it cannot tell you what is right for your situation.

Related research

Turn the evidence into a plan you can actually carry out.

Check in →