The relationship between core self-evaluation and cognitive failure in Chinese adolescents: the sequential mediating role of alexithymia and depression

Abstract

Background

The difficulties that cognitive failure can pose for individuals in the conduct of their everyday life have been documented in many studies. However, there is still limited understanding of the factors that influence cognitive failure and the mediating processes involved. This study uses cognitive resource theory to develop a chain mediation model in order to explore the relationship between core self-evaluation (CSE), alexithymia, depression, and cognitive failure.

Methods

Chinese middle school students (aged 14–18 years, 15.39 ± 0.58) were recruited as participants, and a total of 1,400 participants completed the Core Self-Evaluation Scale (CSES), Cognitive Failures Scale (CFS), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and Depression Self-Rating Scale (SDS). SPSS 27.0 was used for common method bias testing, descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis, and sequence mediation analysis.

Results

Core self-evaluation (r = -0.52), alexithymia (r = 0.65), and depression (r = 0.57) were significantly correlated with cognitive failure, and core self-evaluation could significantly negatively predict cognitive failure (β = -0.06, p < 0.05). Alexithymia and depression played a partial mediating role between core self-evaluation and cognitive failure (CI = [-0.43, -0.33], effect = -0.38), specifically including three pathways: firstly, the independent mediating role of alexithymia (CI = [-0.28, -0.20], effect = -0.24); secondly, the independent mediating role of depression (CI = [-0.14, -0.07], effect = -0.10); thirdly, the sequential mediating role of alexithymia and depression (CI = [-0.05, -0.02], effect = -0.04).

Conclusion

Core self-evaluation was significantly negatively correlated with cognitive failure. Alexithymia and depression played a partial mediating role between core self-evaluation and cognitive failure. The results indicate that raising core self-evaluation, addressing depression, and reducing alexithymia are crucial for reducing cognitive failure issues among adolescents. Therefore, schools and families can take some measures to provide more positive support for teenagers, help them form positive self-awareness, and reduce the occurrence of negative emotions and cognitive errors.

Introduction

Core self-evaluation (CSE) is an integrative framework that primarily encompasses four characteristics: self-esteem, general self-efficacy, internal control, and emotional stability [1, 2]. CSE reflects individuals’ most core and fundamental evaluation of their abilities and values [3]. Interaction theory posits that CSE is an important factor in the interaction between an individual and the external environment [4], suggesting that individuals with positive self-evaluation will have more objective positive experiences, while individuals with negative attitudes towards themselves may encounter and witness more unfavorable events in their life [5]. Studies indicate that CSE is a psychological resource and integrative framework that significantly influences the mental health [6], academic performance [7], job satisfaction [8], and daily behavioral performance of individuals. Furthermore, it is an essential part of the growth process in adolescents [9]. Positive self-evaluation can protect children and adolescents from negative cultural influences and has potential value for evolutionary adaptation during adolescence [10].

Cognitive failure occurs when there are errors and missteps in cognition during the execution of simple tasks [11], which the individual could normally handle with ease [12]. It particularly includes personal errors related to memory performance, attention management, and task execution [13]. Examples include forgetting to turn off lights or lock a door, inability to use a phone correctly, or inability to recall familiar words. As can be seen from these examples, cognitive failure occurs within the context of the real world, and is not a matter of pure deficits in capability [14]. Although cognitive failure is often overlooked, it may interrupt learning and work [15], reduce subjective well-being [16], trigger emotional anxiety, and even cause traffic accidents [17]. Adolescence is not only a critical period for learning, but also a special period of motivational development [18]. Adequate cognitive resources are required to ensure the processing and understanding of knowledge by adolescents, and to guarantee that high levels of cognitive-behavioral flexibility are available in order to improve learning efficiency, maintain attention, and reduce cognitive errors [19]. Consequently, it is important to investigate the risk factors and underlying impact mechanisms of cognitive failure in adolescents.

Core self-evaluation and cognitive failure

In daily life, the frequency of cognitive errors is closely related to an individual’s evaluation of their own value and overall behavioral performance [20]. Cognitive resource theory states that individuals need to utilize psychological resources in order to complete each task but that resources are limited [21]. If resources cannot be effectively allocated or attention resources are insufficient, failure of cognitive activity may occur [22]. CSE is a fundamental mode of self-awareness that involves issues of resource allocation in cognition, emotion, motivation, and other aspects [23]. Research suggests that individuals with lower self-evaluation tend to accumulate more negative feelings and consume more cognitive resources [24]. On the one hand, focusing on these emotions and negative self-views makes it difficult for individuals to allocate attentional resources to the external environment sustainably and effectively. On the other hand, they have to use most of their cognitive resources for self-regulation, leaving fewer resources available for other aspects, thereby elevating the risk of cognitive errors. In contrast, individuals with high levels of self-evaluation are more confident in their abilities, which enables them to quickly find self-related stimuli in the environment and mobilize cognitive resources for processing, thereby reducing cognitive failure [25]. In addition to personality factors such as core self-evaluation [20], alexithymia [26], emotional factors such as depression [27], anxiety [17] can also independently or synergistically induce cognitive failure. Considering the research conducted up to this point, we propose hypothesis 1: CSE can negatively predict cognitive failure.

Alexithymia, core self-evaluation, and cognitive failure

Individuals with alexithymia primarily exhibit deficits in the recognition and regulation of emotions, manifesting as difficulty in identifying and describing emotions, as well as a tendency towards extroverted thinking [28]. Freberger proposed the concept of secondary alexithymia, suggesting that primary alexithymia is congenital and has a biological basis, exhibiting stability. In contrast, secondary alexithymia is induced by traumatic events [29]. Alexithymia has both personality trait dimensions and state response dimensions [30], which is related to negative experiences during childhood and tends to be relatively stable in adulthood [31]. The psychological characteristics of teenagers are recessive and closed [21]. In addition, the Chinese cultural atmosphere has the effect of making emotional expression by individuals more reserved and implicit [32], as a result of which adolescents may find it challenging to articulate their true feelings. The attention-appraisal model of alexithymia explains the weakening of attention and appraisal abilities, reduces the quality and effectiveness of emotional information, and reveals the difficulty of identifying emotional processing processes [33]. The extroverted thinking of alexithymia leads individuals to pay less attention to their inner feelings, hinder their understanding and insight into emotions, increase difficulties in identifying and describing emotions, and impair the ability to convey feelings to the outside world [34]. The destructive effects of alexithymia on individual health and interpersonal relationships increase the risk of depression and suicide, and weaken social adaptation and cognitive abilities. Research has shown that alexithymia is a potential risk factor affecting cognitive processing and mental health [35]. Individuals with alexithymia have significant deficiencies in emotional processing, executive function, and basic cognitive level [36], which is reflected in weaker ability maintain attention and inhibition, speech fluency, working memory, and hot executive functions [37]. Alexithymia is related to some negative factors of a social nature [38,39,40] and others that pertain to individuals [40, 41]. Adolescence is a time of self-exploration and adolescents with high self-evaluation and self-acceptance can smoothly identify, express, and regulate their emotions, achieving a mode of thinking that is more introspective [42]. However, adolescents with low self-evaluation have difficulty perceiving and describing their own and others’ emotions, which increases the likelihood of developing alexithymia [42]. On this basis, we established hypothesis 2: Alexithymia may play a mediating role between CSE and cognitive failure.

Depression, core self-evaluation, and cognitive failure

Depression is a disorder of emotional regulation with anhedonia and depressed mood as the core symptoms, and fatigue, abnormal weight gain and loss, and a sense of meaninglessness or guilt as additional symptoms [43]. Adolescents undergo drastic changes and development both physically and psychologically, and their susceptibility to depression increases rapidly [44]. In 2022, approximately 14.8% of adolescents in China were at risk of depression, of which 4.0% belong to the risk group of major depression and 10.8% belong to the risk group of mild depression [45], which seriously damages the mental health and social functioning of adolescents. Resource allocation theory holds that human cognitive resources are limited [46]. During the process of task execution, individuals in a depressed emotional state will transfer some cognitive resources to activities unrelated to the task, or will invest in disturbing thinking related to depressed emotions [47]. The attention resources allocated to the current cognitive task will then be insufficient, resulting in task failure [42]. Studies have found that cognitive failure is influenced by stress and negative emotions, and that individuals with depressive mood, generalized anxiety, neurasthenia, and bipolar disorder are more likely to suffer from cognitive failure [13]. Since core self-evaluation is a key component of individual self-concept, problems with CSE are often associated with tension, anxiety, low mood and other emotional states [48] and a low level of CSE is a susceptibility factor that generates a series of negative problems [49]. Individuals who experience negative cognitive states may feel worthless, and this intense negative emotion often leads to a pessimistic attitude toward the present and towards future events, increasing the likelihood of depression [50]. In addition, individuals with negative core self-evaluation tend to form stable negative cognition, accompanied by prolonged self-doubt and self-depletion, leading to cognitive susceptibility. When cognitive processing does not correct negative biases, the individual will exhibit cognitive vulnerability to depression [51]. On the contrary, if the individual’s perception of themselves is positive, they may alleviate depression and maintain psychological balance through greater self-affirmation [50]. This prompts us to put forward hypothesis 3: Depression mediates the relationship between CSE and adolescent cognitive failure.

Core self-evaluation, alexithymia, depression, and cognitive failure

Alexithymia is considered a predictor of emotional disorders [52], and its relationship with depression has been paid attention by many researchers. It has been confirmed that alexithymia is an important risk predictor for depression [53], that individuals with alexithymia may have a heightened risk of developing depression, and that people experiencing depression generally exhibit greater levels of alexithymia compared to those with other psychological troubles. Moreover, earlier research has found that alexithymia had a positive predictive effect on depressive symptoms; specifically, the higher the level of alexithymia, the more pronounced the depressive symptoms, and the lower the level of alexithymia, the milder the depressive symptoms [54]. This may be because people with alexithymia have defects in emotional cognition, processing and regulation [55], and their difficulty in recognizing and expressing emotions is more likely to cause a backlog of negative emotions, which has an adverse impact on physical and mental health. Due to the strong correlation between alexithymia and depression, there has been controversy over whether alexithymia is a distinct structure separate from depression. Some researchers believe that the characteristics of alexithymia are positively correlated with depression, and similarly, the level of alexithymia will decrease with the improvement of depression [56, 57]. Based on this viewpoint, alexithymia and depression overlap and cannot be structurally distinguished. Alexithymia merely serves as a state reaction to depressive symptoms [58]. On the other hand, other researchers argue that although there is a close relationship between alexithymia and depression, this does not mean that the two concepts overlap or that alexithymia can be simply regarded as a state reaction to depression [52]. Alexithymia and depression are two independent concepts. As a predisposing factor for depression, alexithymia can be considered a personality trait [59]. Individuals with this personality trait may be more prone to depression than others, and when they are depressed, their alexithymic features may become more prominent [60]. Current research generally tends to view alexithymia from two perspectives: one is a personality trait independent of depression, which is normally distributed in the general population [61], and the other is a defense mechanism, namely primary and secondary alexithymia [62]. Traits are not easily changed, but as secondary defense mechanisms, they are regulatable. Therefore, whether alexithymia serves as a personality trait or a secondary defense mechanism, it is highly related to depressive emotions. Moreover, as a state response, it is influenced by external environments, leading to various emotional issues. The formation of various mental health problems is the result of the interaction between individual genetic susceptibility and external environmental events. Therefore, the causes of alexithymia include both individual biological factors and environmental factors. Among them, self-awareness plays an important role. CSE and alexithymia can have an impact on individual cognitive failure, while alexithymia can also influence depression. Considering the above evidence, we propose hypothesis 4: CSE influences cognitive failure through the sequential mediating role of alexithymia and depression.

Theoretical and empirical research has established that cognitive failure is related to personality traits, emotions, and other psychological factors. However, understanding of the impact mechanism between CSE and cognitive failure needs to be improved. Informed by cognitive resource theory, we consider alexithymia and depression as, respectively, personality trait factors and psychological factors that can elucidate the connection between CSE and cognitive failure. Furthermore, building on this theoretical framework, we developed a chain mediation model (Fig. 1) to verify the four hypotheses of this research: CSE can negatively predict cognitive failure (H1); Alexithymia may play a mediating role between CSE and cognitive failure (H2); Depression would mediate the relationship between CSE and adolescent cognitive failure (H3); CSE influences cognitive failure through the sequential mediation of alexithymia and depression (H4).

Fig. 1

Hypothesis of the chain mediation model

This chain mediation model will comprehensively consider the overall relationship between self-awareness, personality traits, psychological factors, and cognitive development. It will help us understand the connections between various factors more comprehensively and deeply, thereby revealing the impact mechanism of cognitive failures. At the same time, it also enables us to analyze and understand the phenomenon of cognitive failure in adolescents from a new perspective. These findings could offer a theoretical and empirical basis for interventions against and prevention of cognitive failure among adolescents. Additionally, from the perspective of reducing the frequency of cognitive failure, promoting mental health development, improving learning efficiency and cultivating positive self-awareness, this study is of great significance to schools and families, as it can provide them with educational inspiration so that they can implement targeted educational measures.

Methods

Design and procedures

This study adopts a descriptive cross-sectional design with middle school students as participants, who are required to complete an offline questionnaire survey at a certain time point. The offline questionnaire survey was conducted based on class units. A total of 28 classes were randomly selected to participate in the questionnaire survey. Six psychology teachers served as examiners, and the data collection was completed within two weeks. First, the psychology teachers acquired informed consent from teachers, parents or guardians one week before formal testing. Then, the experimenter randomly selected classes and took participants to a quiet and well lit room to complete the questionnaire (the survey was conducted during students’ self-study classes). Before the participants filled out the questionnaire, the researchers informed them of the research purpose, guidelines for completion, and precautions. The questionnaires were completed by the participants within 25 min and collected by the researchers on the spot, and participants can withdraw at any time during the questionnaire filling process. Finally, the researchers sorted the questionnaires.

Participants

This paper used the cluster random sampling method, and recruited 1400 Chinese middle school students as participants to complete the questionnaire survey. The questionnaires with omissions, multiple selections, and strong regularity were considered invalid. A total of 178 (12.7%) questionnaires that were deemed invalid were removed and 1222 (87.3%) valid questionnaires were collected. Of the valid questionnaires, 664 (54.3%) were completed by males and 558 (45.7%) by females; 735 (60.15%) were completed by freshmen, 322 (26.35%) by sophomores and 165 (13.50%) by seniors; 192 (15.7%) of the valid questionnaires were completed by only children and 1030 (84.3%) by non-only children; 68 (5.56%) participants from single-parent family and 1154 (94.44%) from two-parent family. All of the respondents were aged 14–18 years (15.39 ± 0.58).

As required by research ethics, the researchers acquired verbal informed consent from teachers and obtained written informed consent from parents or guardians before conducting the questionnaire survey. Review by the school institution found the research process and methodology of this study to be scientific, reasonable, equitable and just, ensuring that no harm or risk would be posed to the participants. All investigative procedures received the necessary approvals from the schools involved.

Measurements

Core self-evaluation scale

The study used the Core Self-Evaluation Scale (CSES) [63] revised by Du Jianzheng et al. [64]. The scale consists of 10 questions (e.g., I believe I can achieve success in life), and is scored from 1 point (strongly disagree) to 5 points (strongly agree). Higher scores on the CSES indicated that the participants have stronger general self-efficacy, higher self-esteem, more stable emotions, and are more inclined to internal control. Cronbach’s α coefficient for the CSES in this investigation was 0.89.

Cognitive failure scale

The Cognitive Failure Questionnaire (CFS) was created by Broadbent et al. [12], and revised into Chinese by Zhou Yang et al. [65]. The CFS consists of 25 questions (e.g., Do you find you forget people’s names?) and five core dimensions, scored from 1 point (never) to 5 points (always). The higher the CFS score, the more lapses the participants had that were caused by cognitive distortions. In this paper, Cronbach’s α for the CFS was 0.93.

Toronto alexithymia scale

This paper used the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) [66], revised in Chinese by Yuan Yonggui et al. [67]. The scale has three dimensions: lack of ability to recognize emotions, lack of ability to describe emotions, and extroverted thinking. It consists of 20 questions (e.g., I can express my feelings easily), and is scored from 1 point (totally disagree) to 5 points (totally agree). The higher the TAS-20 score, the more difficult it is for participants to recognize and express their emotions, and the higher their level of alexithymia. Cronbach’s α for the TAS-20 in this investigation was 0.81.

Self-rating depression scale

The Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) was created by Zung in 1965 [68]. The scale consists of 20 questions (e.g., I feel tired for no reason) and is scored from 1 point (never) to 4 points (always). The questionnaire assesses four categories of specific symptoms: psycho-affective issues, somatic problems, psychomotor disturbances, and psychological aspects of depression. The SDS scoring system varies from normal (sum total of standard scores for all 20 questions equal to 50 or lower), mild depression (50 to 59), moderate depression (60 to 69), and severe depression (70 or higher). In this investigation, Cronbach’s α for the SDS was found to be 0.85.

Statistical analysis

This research used IBM SPSS version 27.0 to perform testing for common method bias, as well as to carry out descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis on variables. The Process macro program within SPSS was utilized to analyze the sequence mediated effect [69].

Common method deviation test

Common method deviation as a systematic bias influenced by human factors including identical data source or environment, and is prevalent in research involving questionnaires. This study used a questionnaire to collect data, and may therefore be subject to common method deviation. Common method deviation is reduced by strictly controlling the testing procedure when the questionnaire is being completed. In addition, we conducted exploratory factor analysis for all scales utilizing a Harman single-factor test, a total of 14 common factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 were extracted and the variance contribution rate of the first common factor was 24.52% (< 40%) [70]. This result indicates that although this study used a questionnaire survey method to collect data, common method deviation caused by the self-reported questionnaire could be excluded.

Results

Characteristic analysis of samples regarding CSES and CFS

This study used kurtosis and skewness tests to verify the normality of the data (Table 1). After verification, the kurtosis and skewness values of the four variables in this study are within an acceptable range [71], indicating that these data meet the requirements of statistical analysis.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics analysis of variables (n = 1222)

The CSE of participants was compared (Table 2). There was a significant difference between females and males (p < 0.001); only children and non-only children also showed significant difference (p < 0.01); single-parent family and two-parent family showed no significant difference (p > 0.05). A one-way ANOVA revealed no significant differences in core self-evaluation among participants of different ages (p = 0.76); no significant differences among different grades (p = 0.75). As shown in Fig. 2, males had higher CSE score than females, and the CSE of non-only children is lower than that of only children.

Table 2 Analysis of the differences among variables (n = 1222)

Fig. 2

Distribution of mean core self-evaluation of participants

Note:^*: p < 0.05,^**: p < 0.01,^***: p < 0.001

Cognitive failure of participants was compared (Table 2). Analysis showed that males and females showed significant differences in cognitive failure (p < 0.001); only children and non-only children also showed significant differences ( p < 0.05); single-parent family and two-parent family showed no significant difference (p > 0.05). A one-way ANOVA revealed no significant differences in cognitive failure between various age groups (p = 0.60); no significant differences among different grades (p = 0.09). As shown in Fig. 3, females scored higher than males, and only children scored lower than non-only children.

Fig. 3

Distribution of mean cognitive failure of participants

Note:^*: p < 0.05,^**: p < 0.01,^***: p < 0.001

Correlational analysis of variables

The analysis of correlations indicated that core self-evaluation had negative relationships with cognitive failure, alexithymia, and depression (p < 0.01). Additionally, cognitive failure was positively associated with both alexithymia and depression (p < 0.01), while a positive correlation was also observed between depression and alexithymia (p < 0.01). These relationships among the variables advocate further examination of the research hypotheses (Table 3).

Table 3 Correlation analysis of variables (n = 1222)

Chain mediated effect test

This study used MODEL6 of the SPSS Process macro program for mediating effect testing [74]. A bootstrap sample with capacity of 5000 was extracted and a 95% confidence interval test was performed on the mediation effect model of the sample. Due to significant correlation between demographic variables (gender, age, and whether the subjects are only children) and research variables, in order to exclude interference of these three variables in the mediation model, demographic variables were used as control variables in the model. As shown in Table 4, core self-evaluation can significantly negatively predict cognitive failure (β = −0.06, 95%CI = [−0.11, −0.01]), alexithymia (β = −0.60, 95%CI = [−0.44, −0.37]) and depression (β = −0.56, 95%CI = [−8.05, −6.86]); alexithymia can significantly positively predict depression (β = 0.32, 95%CI = [5.48, 7.22]) and cognitive failure (β = 0.46, 95%CI = [0.52, 0.66]); and depression can significantly positively predict cognitive failure (β = 0.21, 95%CI = [0.01, 0.02]).

Table 4 Regression analysis of core self-evaluation, depression, alexithymia, and cognitive failure

Significance analysis of the mediation effect (Table 5, Fig. 4) showed that alexithymia and depression had a partial mediating effect between core self-evaluation and cognitive failure. The mediating effect was composed of three indirect pathways: path 1 was core self-evaluation → alexithymia → cognitive failure, suggesting that the mediating effect of alexithymia was significant (effect = −0.24); path 2 was core self-evaluation → depression → cognitive failure, demonstrating the mediating role of depression (effect = −0.10); path 3 was core self-evaluation → alexithymia → depression → cognitive failure, indicating that the chain mediating effect between alexithymia and depression was established (effect = −0.04). In addition, the direct effect of CSE on cognitive failure was significant (effect = −0.06).

Table 5 Chain mediation effect test and Bootstrap analysis results

Fig. 4

Chain mediated effect model

Note: ^*: p < 0.05,^**: p < 0.01,^***: p < 0.001

Discussion

In this paper, we developed a sequential mediation hypothesis model to explore the relationship between core self-evaluation and cognitive failure in adolescents. The findings of the study support four hypotheses and validate the mediation model. Our study not only reveals the mechanism by which core self-evaluation affects cognitive failure, but also provides insights and ideas for intervening in cognitive failure in adolescents.

Analysis of differences between core self-evaluation and cognitive failure as related to demographic variables

The findings of the descriptive statistical analysis indicated that females exhibit lower levels of CSE compared to males and that only children demonstrate higher levels of CSE than non-only children. The trend as to levels of cognitive failure was the converse of these results. These findings are consistent with societal gender role disparities, as families often take different approaches to the upbringing of boys and of girls [72]. In Chinese society and culture, men have always been assigned roles as pillars of society and of the family, and are expected to shoulder greater economic, moral, and legal responsibility. They must then have confidence in their ability to live up to these roles [72] and must cultivate a sense of bravery, independence, responsibility, and willingness to face challenges. These factors are likely to enhance CSE among men compared with women. The CSE of adolescents without siblings was considerably stronger than that of adolescents with siblings, possibly because only children tend to receive more attention and nurturing from their families, and can obtain more resources in their lives, thereby improving their happiness experience, self-esteem, and self-efficacy [73]. As an individual trait, cognitive failure is caused by a lack of cognitive control during tasks. In order to avoid cognitive failure, individuals need to consume internal resources as they are carrying out a task. Individuals with high CSE can accumulate sufficient resources to ensure sustainable and effective allocation of cognitive resources, increasing task success rates and reducing cognitive errors. These reasons together offer a cogent explanation of why the level of cognitive failure in boys and only children is significantly lower than among girls and non-only children.

The relationship between core self-evaluation and cognitive failure

Analysis of the data indicated a notable negative correlation between CSE and cognitive failure; specifically, as participants’ core self-evaluation decreased, the occurrence of cognitive failures increased. This observation aligns with findings from prior research [19]. Individuals with low CSE will be immersed in past failures and deficiencies, in terms of cognitive patterns, they may experience excessive introspection, making it difficult to shift their attention to new environments [74], and this unreasonable allocation of cognitive resources can lead to difficulties in completing new cognitive tasks. Positive core self-evaluation enables individuals to have strong self-awareness and motivation, focus more on current tasks, cultivate more positive internal regulatory motivation and psychological resilience, and thus improve cognitive flexibility [75]. In addition, according to the benefit theory, individuals with high CSE can maintain positive cognition and emotions by responding positively to the environment, especially as it relates to themselves, resulting in less perception of unfavorable information [76]. Similarly, they have more psychological resources and a positive self-schema, and can absorb and transform resources to complete tasks of differing levels of difficulty [76]. However, individuals with negative self-awareness and self-evaluation often adopt avoidance strategies to cope with the external environment. This pattern can occupy limited cognitive resources, distract attention, reduce cognitive flexibility, strengthen cognitive stereotypes, and ultimately lead to cognitive failure when completing simple tasks [77]. Additionally, individual failures in some simple tasks (such as forgetting exam times, calling others by the wrong name, losing focus in important situations, etc.) will further reinforce the sense of self-worthlessness, and generate feelings of restlessness and helplessness, and suppress their internal drive to handle external events, and ultimately form a vicious cycle. Therefore, positive core self-evaluation can help teenagers to complete various activities more efficiently and actively, reducing the occurrence of cognitive failure.

The mediating role of alexithymia

The present study demonstrated that CSE can influence cognitive failure through alexithymia. Moreover, the individual mediating effect of alexithymia was significantly higher than the other two paths, indicating that alexithymia plays the greatest mediating role in the impact of CSE on cognitive failure. Previous studies have shown that many internal variables (trauma, suicide, etc.) can affect mental health and cognition through alexithymia [78]. Self concept is identified as a potential factor in the development and maintenance of emotional disorders [79]. CSE is individuals’ most core and fundamental evaluation of themselves, which has both positive and negative aspects, and will affect their psychological and behavioral performance [3]. Judge found that individuals with higher CSE often exhibit more positive self-awareness [80]. They possess excellent emotional regulation and expression abilities, displaying more mature, confident, and steady traits. These characteristics enable them to better cope with challenges and pressures in life, maintaining inner balance and stability. However, the biggest challenge of alexithymia is the lack of ability to distinguish and evaluate emotions [28]. When self-evaluations are more negative, the likelihood of experiencing cognitive bias increases. This erroneous self-awareness leads to excessive focus by individuals on information unrelated to their own emotions, ignoring or even resisting interpersonal and emotional communication with others, which is liable to lead to emotional processing disorders [78]. The impact of alexithymia on cognitive failure can be evidenced by the formation mechanism of alexithymia. From the perspective of psychological mechanism, alexithymia reflects an individual’s impaired ability in emotional cognitive processing and regulation [34]. Individuals with high levels of alexithymia often show insufficient emotional perception ability and struggle to learn adaptive coping strategies. They are more inclined to adopt poor defense mechanisms, which will lead to various problems [81]. In addition, alexithymia is strongly associated with impaired executive function [82]. Individuals with alexithymia have difficulty with problem solving, using feedback, and cognitive flexibility. From the perspective of physiological mechanisms, individuals with alexithymia lack coordination in the organization and regulation processes between physiological and experiential systems, and are unable to make effective adaptive responses to changing stimuli and often make mistakes in their daily lives [83]. As a personality trait or state response that may occur in ordinary people [30], alexithymia can reflect an individual’s overall emotional cognition, emotional perception, and capacity for emotional expression, and can negatively predict an individual’s cognitive failure. Thus, a high level of CSE can reduce cognitive failure by enhancing emotional perception and expression skills in adolescents.

The mediating role of depression

The results of this paper also revealed the mediating role of depression between CSE and cognitive failure. A high level of CSE is a protective element, which can help individuals to rationally understand themselves and cope calmly with external pressure, alleviating such negative feelings as anxiety, depression, and tension [84]. On the contrary, negative core self-evaluation tends to make teenagers have negative emotions, undermining their confidence and determination to tackle challenges [48], which is harmful to their academic development, interpersonal communication, and mental health. For example, individuals with higher CSE have more positive emotions and less depression and anxiety. These individuals are emotionally stable and optimistic, demonstrating a high level of mental health. Individuals with low CSE may exhibit characteristics such as low self-esteem and frequent emotional fluctuations, resulting in lower levels of mental health [85]. Individuals with emotional disorders often make mistakes in simple activities, such as being distracted in class, being unable to answer basic questions, failing to complete simple exams, and forgetting things they have done, etc. According to the theory of resource limitation, when individuals perceive stress, they may experience negative emotions such as tension and depression. This emotional state will cause individuals to allocate a large amount of cognitive resources to cope with difficulties, focus on threatening events and negative emotions, form specific action tendencies, and reduce their attention and resource allocation to current events, resulting in cognitive failure [86]. Furthermore, the theory of emotional broaden-build also points out that negative emotions are a signal for individuals to encounter threatening events. After perceiving negative emotions, individuals’ resource allocation will be imbalanced, narrowing their thinking and action resources and cognitive action categories, thereby competing for limited resources and increasing the frequency of cognitive failure [87]. It can be seen that individuals with high CSE have more psychological resources and positive emotions, which reduces the risk of cognitive failure.

The sequential mediating role of alexithymia and depression

Besides the separate mediating impacts of alexithymia and depression, this research has also shown that alexithymia and depression play a chain mediating role between CSE and cognitive failure. Higher scores of alexithymia and depression indicate that individuals may have problems with emotional regulation [88], interpersonal communication, and social adaptation [89]. These individuals often use inappropriate cognitive coping mechanisms such as rumination, self-blame and catastrophizing to deal with internal and external stimuli [90], thus increasing the possibility of cognitive failure. Positive core self-evaluation can help teenagers to maintain stable and optimistic emotions, and to be more confident in emotional perception and expression [91]. Additionally, positive psychological traits possessed by individuals are protective factors against alexithymia, which can improve mental health and reduce the likelihood of a series of internalization and externalization problems [92]. Meanwhile, the easier it is to recognize and express emotions, the more beneficial it is for individuals to adopt positive strategies such as reassessment, acceptance, and rationalization to cope with stressful life events, promote problem solving, and escape quickly from negative situations. In this way, low levels of alexithymia can alleviate individuals’ negative emotions [93]. Alexithymia can also be used as a risk predictor of depression, leaving individuals unable to express themselves emotionally and leaving their needs unmet, which can result in psychological depression and imbalance [94]. Neuroimaging studies of alexithymia have shown that the brain structures related to alexithymia are distributed in different parts of the brain, and may be associated with a functional circuit that includes different psychological processes such as visual signal input, emotion recognition, emotional attention allocation, emotional awareness experience, and empathy. The core structures responsible for these functions are more concentrated in the marginal systems such as the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, and insula [95]. The damage and abnormality of these structures may lead to individual emotional processing disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and other emotions. According to the integrated model of cognitive failure, depression is an important non-cognitive factor leading to cognitive failure [11]. It can impair cognitive functions such as inductive reasoning, working memory, processing speed, verbal fluency, executive functioning and attention and cause excessive consumption of cognitive resources [86], increasing the risk of cognitive failure in adolescents. Positive CSE can decrease the level of alexithymia, thus reducing experience of negative emotion. This will help adolescents to accumulate positive psychological resources, improve the efficiency and flexibility of cognitive activities, avoid the occurrence of cognitive failures, and promote mental well-being.

Limitations and future prospects

Although this study validated all of the research hypotheses, there is still room for improvement and refinement. Firstly, the research variable (CSE) has cultural characteristics, and the research results cannot infer whether it can be extended to different regions. Future research should include participants from different cultural backgrounds. Secondly, this study aims to discover the potential mechanisms and influencing factors of cognitive failure, and CSE involves multiple personality dimensions, which have a complicated relationship with other personality traits and emotional factors, but it is impossible to determine the causal relationship between the four variables without using a longitudinal tracking design. Additionally, this study lacks exploration of other potential mediating variables and control for other additional variables, which is also an issue that needs further exploration in future research.

With the advancement of psychological research methods and techniques, particularly the development of cognitive neuroscience technology and its widespread application in the field of psychological research, researchers are increasingly focusing on the neural mechanisms related to self and cognition. Prior research has demonstrated that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is the neural basis of the self, and all cognitive processing processes associated with the self cannot be separated from the involvement of the MPFC [96]. Meanwhile, various cognitive tasks primarily engage different sub-components of the MPFC: the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC, ventral-VMPFC) is mainly involved in self-processing, while the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC, dorsal-VMPFC) may also be related to a wide range of social cognitive processes, such as episodic memory retrieval, reasoning tasks, self-representation, and self-cognition [96, 97]. The combination of various research fields, especially the emergence of neuroscience research, has enriched and developed investigation of the interplay between self-awareness and brain function. Building on current studies, the connection between self-knowledge and cognitive failure and the brain mechanism can be deeply analyzed in future research through the use of neuroimaging techniques. However, it is important to highlight, firstly, that the self-awareness nurtured by Chinese culture has unique characteristics, mainly reflected in the fact that the relationship between self and others is particularly important in Chinese culture. So, discussion of the relationship between self-cognition and other variables in the light of the present research needs to be seen in the context of Chinese culture. Secondly, cognitive failure only refers to the cognitive errors reported by individuals in the real situation, rather than a defect of cognitive ability, which will change with factors such as environment, time, emotions, and states [12]. It is not clear whether there is an exact relationship between subjective cognitive errors and objective cognitive deficits. By clarifying the similarities and distinctions between these two aspects, we can gain a deeper understanding of how cognitive processes work in real life and enhance the effectiveness of cognitive research.

Conclusion

In summary, four hypotheses proposed in this study were verified: CSE can negatively predict cognitive failure; Alexithymia plays a mediating role between CSE and cognitive failure; Depression would mediate the relationship between CSE and cognitive failure; CSE influences cognitive failure through the sequential mediation of alexithymia and depression. Cognitive lapses are common in life, which can interrupt learning and work, reduce subjective well-being, trigger anxiety and meaninglessness, and even lead to serious accidents, but they are often ignored. This study validates the proposed hypothesis model and is helpful for clarifying the mediating mechanism of adolescents’ CSE on cognitive failure. The results of the study demonstrate the importance of guiding adolescents to engage in self-awareness correctly and positively. Specifically, correct self-evaluation has positive significance for individuals, enabling them to maintain mental balance, improve mental health, reduce negative emotions and cognitive failure, and enhance work or study efficiency. Therefore, the society, school and family should pay attention to the positive guidance of adolescents and promote the formation of positive self-evaluation.