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The indirect effect of positive affect in the relationship between trait mindfulness and emotion dysregulation
Personality and Individual Differences 145 (2019) 70–74
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The indirect effect of positive affect in the relationship between trait mindfulness and emotion dysregulation
T
Laura E. McLaughlina, Christina M. Lubertob,c, Emily M. O'Bryand, Kristen M. Kraemere, ⁎ Alison C. McLeishf, a
Temple University, Department of Psychology, Mood and Cognition Lab, Weiss Hall, 1701 North 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, 15 Parkman St., Boston, MA 02114, USA c Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 151 Merrimac St., Boston, MA 02114, USA d University of Cincinnati, Department of Psychology, 5140K Edwards I Building, 45 W. Corry Blvd., Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA e Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, 1309 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02445, USA f University of Louisville, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, 301G Life Sciences Building, Louisville, KY 40292, USA b
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Mindfulness Affect Positive affect Mechanism Emotion regulation
Mindfulness is correlated with better emotion regulation and mindfulness training improves emotion regulation; however, mechanisms of these effects have not been widely studied. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine the indirect effect of greater mindfulness on fewer emotion regulation difficulties through positive affect. Participants were 219 undergraduate students (Mage = 19.20; 70.5% female; 91.5% Caucasian) who completed self-report measures for course credit. Results indicated a significant direct effect of mindfulness on emotion dysregulation (b = −1.71, t = −6.94, p < .001) and significant indirect effect of greater mindfulness on fewer emotion regulation problems through higher levels of positive affect (indirect effect = −0.50; SE = 0.13; 95% CI = −0.80 to −0.28). These results help to generate testable hypotheses for future mechanistic research in this area by suggesting that one way trait mindfulness may protect against emotion dysregulation could be by cultivating positive affect. Future research using longitudinal designs is needed to explore positive affect as a causal mechanism.
1. Introduction Difficulties with emotion regulation are a critical factor in the development and maintenance of several forms of psychopathology (Fernandez, Jazaieri, & Gross, 2016; Gross, 2015; Gross & Jazaieri, 2014; Jazaieri, Urry, & Gross, 2013). Indeed, greater difficulties with emotion regulation are associated with greater levels of anxiety and mood disorder symptoms, beyond the effects of negative affect itself (Aldao & Christensen, 2015; Mennin, Holaway, Fresco, Moore, & Heimberg, 2007; O'Bryan, McLeish, Kraemer, & Fleming, 2015). As such, research has begun to examine methods for improving emotion regulation. One factor that has been examined extensively in this regard is trait mindfulness. Mindfulness involves the self-regulation of attention toward present moment experiences with an attitude of non-judgment and curiosity (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006; Bishop et al., 2004; Kabat-Zinn, 1982). Trait mindfulness refers to the general ability to be mindful in daily life, and can be increased through
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regular practice in formal (e.g., body scan, mindful breathing) and informal mindfulness meditations (e.g., mindful walking, mindful eating; Brown and Ryan, 2003; Nyklíček, van Beugen, & Denollet, 2013; Shapiro, Brown, Thoresen, & Plante, 2011). Greater levels of trait mindfulness are associated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties across clinical and non-clinical populations (Baer et al., 2006; Coffey & Hartman, 2008; Erisman & Roemer, 2012). There is also evidence that trait mindfulness promotes healthy emotion regulation. For example, Arch and Craske (2006, 2010) found that trait mindfulness was associated with reduced emotional reactivity and improved distress tolerance in response to distressing laboratory tasks. Increases in trait mindfulness following mindfulness-based interventions have also been associated with improvements in emotion regulation (Kumar, Feldman, & Hayes, 2008; Robins, Keng, Ekblad, & Brantley, 2012; Roemer, Williston, & Rollins, 2015). However, the exact mechanisms through which trait mindfulness protects against emotion regulation difficulties remain unclear. Positive affectivity, defined as the tendency to experience positive affective
Corresponding author at: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, 301G Life Sciences Building, Louisville, KY 40292, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.C. McLeish).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.03.020 Received 22 August 2018; Received in revised form 10 January 2019; Accepted 16 March 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Personality and Individual Differences 145 (2019) 70–74
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psychopathology research (Watson, 2000). In the present study, participants were instructed to assess affect experienced over the past year. Both the positive (PANAS-PA) and negative affect (PANAS-NA) subscales were used as an index of one's general disposition to experience positive (e.g., interested, enthusiastic, inspired, proud) and negative (e.g., anger, anxiety, depression, guilt) affective states. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all to 5 = extremely). Internal consistency for both the PANAS-PA (α = 0.87) and PANAS-NA (α = 0.88) in the current sample were good.
states, such as joy, enthusiasm, and alertness (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) may serve as one mechanism. Greater levels of trait mindfulness have been associated with greater levels of positive affect in clinical and non-clinical adult populations (Erisman & Roemer, 2010, 2012; Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2010; Zeng & Gu, 2017). Moreover, there is temporal evidence of causal effects. In ecological momentary assessment studies, increases in trait mindfulness have been shown to precede increases in positive affect (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Keng & Tong, 2016; Weinstein, Brown, & Ryan, 2009), and mind wandering in one moment (i.e., thinking about something other than what one is doing) has been shown to predict decreases in happiness in the next moment (Snippe et al., 2015). Further, mindfulness training has been shown to increase positive affect among both clinical and nonclinical populations (Davidson et al., 2003; Geschwind, Peeters, Drukker, van Os, & Wichers, 2011; Ietsugu et al., 2015; Zautra et al., 2008). There is also evidence to suggest that positive affect can improve emotion regulation. Per Fredrickson's (1998, 2004) broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions repair the harmful psychophysiological consequences of negative emotions by broadening one's outlook and building one's psychological resources (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2007). By building healthy psychological resources, positive affect may promote improvements in emotion regulation because individuals become better able to access and utilize effective skills to manage distressing psychological states. In line with this theory, greater positive affect is associated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties (Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003; Hamilton, Burke, Stange, Kleiman, & Alloy, 2017; Ong, Bergeman, Bisconti, & Wallace, 2006; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2007), and increases in positive affect lead to improvements in emotion regulation processes (Batink, Peeters, Geschwind, van Os, & Wichers, 2013; Garland, Geschwind, Peeters, & Wichers, 2015). Taken together, extant research suggests that greater trait mindfulness can lead to greater positive affect and, in turn, fewer emotion regulation difficulties. Thus, positive affect may be implicated in the relationship between mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. While establishing an indirect effect of positive affect cannot provide causal inferences about positive affect as a mechanism—it can help identify measurable targets for future longitudinal mechanistic research. Therefore, we conducted an exploratory study of the role of positive affect in the inverse association between mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. We hypothesized that, after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, there would be a significant indirect effect of greater levels of trait mindfulness on fewer emotion regulation difficulties through higher levels of positive affect.
2.2.2. Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) The DERS (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) is a 36-item self-report measure that assesses difficulties regulating negative emotional states. Emotion regulation difficulties are assessed across six domains: 1) lack of emotional clarity (e.g., “I am clear about my feelings” – reverse scored); 2) lack of emotional awareness (e.g., “I pay attention to how I feel” – reverse scored); 3) impulsivity (e.g., “When I'm upset, I become out of control”); 4) non-acceptance of emotional responses (e.g., “When I'm upset, I become embarrassed for feeling that way”); 5) difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior (e.g., “When I'm upset, I have difficulty focusing on other things”); and 6) limited access to emotion regulation strategies (e.g., “When I'm upset, I believe I will remain that way for a long time”). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = almost never to 5 = almost always). The DERS total score was used in the current study, with higher scores representing greater difficulties regulating emotions. The DERS has demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and adequate construct validity (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Internal consistency for the DERS in the current study was excellent (α = 0.95).
2.2.3. Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R) The CAMS-R (Feldman, Hayes, Kumar, Greeson, & Laurenceau, 2007) is a 12-item self-report measure of trait mindfulness. Items assess mindfulness across four domains: 1) the regulation of attention (e.g., “It's easy for me to keep track of my thoughts and feelings”); 2) presentmoment attention (e.g., “I am able to focus on the present moment”); 3) awareness of experience (e.g., “I can usually describe how I feel at the moment in considerable detail”); and 4) acceptance and nonjudgment of experience (e.g., “I try to notice my thoughts without judging them”). Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = rarely/not at all to 4 = almost always). Higher scores reflect greater trait mindfulness. The CAMS-R total score has demonstrated good psychometric properties, including good convergent and discriminant validity in terms of associations with other mindfulness measures, well-being, emotion regulation, problem-solving and distress (Feldman et al., 2007). Internal consistency for the CAMS-R in the current study was good (α = 0.80).
2. Method 2.1. Participants
2.3. Procedure
Participants were 219 undergraduate psychology students (70.8% female; Mage = 19.20, SD = 1.73, Range = 18–33). In terms of the racial composition of the sample, 90% self-identified as Caucasian, 5.9% as Asian, 1.4% as African American, 1.8% as multiracial, and 0.9% did not specify. 1.8% of the sample reported Hispanic ethnicity.
Undergraduate students at a large, Midwestern university who were aged 18 and older and enrolled in psychology courses with a research requirement were eligible to participate in the study for course credit. Detailed information about the study was available on a psychology department research study site (i.e., Sona), where interested students signed up and were provided with a link to complete the study measures online through a secure Web-based survey platform (i.e., Qualtrics). Participants' IP addresses were protected to ensure anonymity. The Institutional Review Board approved all study materials and procedures prior to data collection. Nine validity items were included throughout the survey to detect careless responding (e.g., “I am using a computer currently”; Meade & Craig, 2012). Although 312 participants completed the study, 73 participants were excluded from the analyses for failing to either 1) indicate their data was reliable, or 2) respond correctly to all nine validity items.
2.2. Measures1 2.2.1. Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) The PANAS (Watson et al., 1988) is a 20-item self-report measure of broad-based positive and negative mood states commonly used in 1 The measures assessed in this study, described below, were selected from a broader empirical project focused on emotions and health-related outcomes, for which a complete list of measures collected may be obtained upon request.
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the completely standardized indirect effect revealed a medium effect size (abcs = −0.12).
2.4. Data analytic plan First, zero-order correlations were conducted to examine associations between all study variables. Next, a mediation analysis was computed to examine the indirect effect of mindfulness (predictor variable [X]) on emotion regulation difficulties (criterion variable [Y]) through positive affect (proposed mediator [M]). Negative affectivity was included as a covariate due to well-documented associations between this variable and positive affect (Gentzler, Ramsey, Yi, Palmer, & Morey, 2014; Russell & Carroll, 1999) and emotion dysregulation (Bradley et al., 2011; Westen, Muderrisoglu, Fowler, Shedler, & Koren, 1997). The indirect effect was tested using PROCESS, a conditional process modeling program that tests direct and indirect effects using an ordinary least squares-based (OLS) path analytical framework (Hayes, 2013; Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Bias-corrected bootstrapping (k = 10,000) was used to generate a 95% confidence interval (CI) to test the significance of the indirect effect (Preacher & Hayes, 2004, 2008). As a measure of effect size, the completely standardized indirect effect was used (abcs; Preacher & Kelley, 2011), with small, medium, and large effects defined as 0.01, 0.09, and 0.25, respectively (Kenny, 2014).
4. Discussion The benefits of greater trait mindfulness for emotion regulation have been widely documented, but limited research has focused on explicating potential mechanisms of these effects. This exploratory cross-sectional study is the first to examine the indirect effect of positive affect in the relationship between trait mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. Consistent with our hypotheses, there was a significant indirect effect of trait mindfulness on emotion dysregulation through positive affectivity, which accounted for 22.9% of the relationship between mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. These findings suggest that greater positive emotions may impact the extent to which trait mindfulness protects against emotion regulation difficulties. Through promoting a present moment orientation, trait mindfulness may enhance one's capacity to notice positive emotions and experiences occurring in everyday life, which may otherwise go unnoticed due to the strong potential for negativity bias (i.e., selective attention toward negative experiences; Gollan et al., 2016; Ito, Larsen, Smith, & Cacioppo, 1998). Moreover, the open, curious, and nonjudgmental attitude of mindfulness may allow individuals to notice neutral experiences with a more positive valence, further increasing positive affect (Arch & Craske, 2006; Erisman & Roemer, 2010; Huffziger et al., 2013). As mentioned above, promoting greater positive affectivity may then, in turn, broaden one's outlook and build psychological resources to promote healthy emotional responding (Fredrickson, 1998, 2004). Limitations to the current study are worth noting. First, this study was based on one measure and conceptualization of trait mindfulness. Although the measure is well-validated, we were unable to assess specific mindfulness skills; thus, future research is needed to determine whether specific mindfulness facets differentially relate to positive affect and emotion regulation. The validity of trait mindfulness measures also remains an important topic of discussion (Davidson, 2010; Grossman & Van Dam, 2011; Van Dam, Hobkirk, Danoff-Burg, & Earleywine, 2012). While we acknowledge the difficulty inherent in self-report mindfulness measures, recent research demonstrates the continued relevance of assessing dispositional mindfulness and its potential for change through the practice of meditation and other mindfulness training (Kiken, Garland, Bluth, Palsson, & Gaylord, 2015; Quaglia, Braun, Freeman, McDaniel, & Brown, 2016; Shapiro et al., 2011). Moreover, self-report measures provide an effective means for examining the variation of mindfulness as a dispositional characteristic in non-clinical samples (Baer et al., 2006) and populations with differing degrees of exposure to mindfulness-related facets (Bergomi, Tschacher, & Kupper, 2013), expanding our insight into mindfulness mechanisms across diverse samples. Second, the current sample consisted of non-clinical undergraduate students, who were primarily female and Caucasian. Further research is needed to evaluate the study hypotheses using more gender and
3. Results See Table 1 for descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among all study variables. Greater negative affectivity was significantly correlated with lower levels of mindfulness, lower levels of positive affect, and greater difficulties with emotion regulation. Greater mindfulness was significantly correlated with greater positive affectivity and fewer emotion regulation difficulties. Higher levels of positive affectivity were also significantly correlated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties. See Fig. 1 for a depiction of the mediation analysis. Results indicated that approximately 60% of the variance in emotion dysregulation was accounted for by the predictors (i.e., full model; R2 = 0.60, df = 3, 215, F = 106.31, p < .001) were significant. When controlling for negative affectivity, greater levels of mindfulness significantly predicted fewer emotion regulation difficulties (path c; t = −8.94, p < .001). Greater levels of mindfulness also significantly predicted higher levels of positive affectivity (path a; t = 5.54, p < .001). Finally, greater levels of positive affectivity were significantly associated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties, above and beyond the effects of negative affectivity and mindfulness (path b; b = −0.96, t = −5.76, p < .001). Negative affectivity was a significant covariate for paths c (b = 1.10, t = 5.65, p < .001) and b (b = 1.14, t = 6.28, p < .001). Mindfulness remained a significant predictor of emotion regulation difficulties when controlling for the mediator (path c’; t = −6.94, p < .001). In terms of the indirect effect, higher levels of mindfulness were significantly predictive of fewer emotion regulation difficulties indirectly through greater positive affectivity (indirect effect = −0.50; SE = 0.13; 95% CI = −0.81 to −0.28), accounting for 22.64% of the total effect of mindfulness on emotion dysregulation. Examination of Table 1 Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among all study variables.
1. 2. 3. 4.
PANAS-NA CAMS-R PANAS-PA DERS
1
2
3
4
M
SD
Observed range
Possible range
– – – –
−0.57⁎⁎ – – –
−0.26⁎⁎ 0.43⁎⁎ – –
0.60⁎⁎ −0.68⁎⁎ −0.52⁎⁎ –
22.47 30.74⁎ 34.79 84.53
6.86 5.39 6.77 23.65
11–41 17–46 16–48 39–161
10–50 12–48 10–50 36–180
Note: PANAS-NA: Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule-Negative Affect subscale (Watson et al., 1988); CAMS-R: Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness ScaleRevised (Feldman et al., 2007); PANAS-PA: Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule-Positive Affect subscale (Watson et al., 1988); DERS: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01. 72
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Positive Affect
a = .52 (.41)***, SE = .09
b = -.96 (-.28)***, SE = .17
c’ = -1.71 (-.39)***, SE = .25 Mindfulness c = -2.21 (-.50)***, SE = .25
Emotion Regulation Difficulties
Fig. 1. Diagram of simple mediation analysis of mindfulness on emotion regulation difficulties through positive affect.
ethnically diverse populations, ideally from community or clinical samples. Third, this study did not evaluate the frequency of positive emotions in real-time, but rather the tendency to experience positive affect. We reasoned that greater trait positive affect would reflect more frequent moments of positive affect in daily life, and that a measure of dispositional positive affect would more properly suit the trait-like mindfulness and emotion regulation constructs used. It may be worthwhile for future studies to explore the role of state-level positive affect (e.g., via EMA studies). Fourth, we did not consider possible confounding variables influencing individual differences in mindfulness, positive affect, and emotion regulation, such as personality traits (Giluk, 2009), diet and physical activity (Klatt, Buckworth, & Malarkey, 2009), and attention regulation (Hölzel et al., 2011). Future studies should control for these and other confounding factors. Lastly, the current study relied on cross-sectional data, and thus causality and directionality of the relationships among mindfulness, positive affect, and emotion regulation difficulties cannot be determined. Several studies have demonstrated that changes in mindfulness precede changes in affective outcomes and emotion regulation processes (Arch & Craske, 2006, 2010; Robins et al., 2012), providing support for our model. At the same time, it is possible that these relationships are bidirectional and future longitudinal research should test competing models to clarify both the direction and specific mechanisms of each pathway, e.g., whether positive affect leads to improved emotion regulation or vice versa. Despite these limitations, the current results extend the mindfulness-emotion regulation literature by offering testable, evidence-based hypotheses for future research on mechanisms of mindfulness training for emotional outcomes.
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The indirect effect of positive affect in the relationship between trait mindfulness and emotion dysregulation
T
Laura E. McLaughlina, Christina M. Lubertob,c, Emily M. O'Bryand, Kristen M. Kraemere, ⁎ Alison C. McLeishf, a
Temple University, Department of Psychology, Mood and Cognition Lab, Weiss Hall, 1701 North 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, 15 Parkman St., Boston, MA 02114, USA c Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 151 Merrimac St., Boston, MA 02114, USA d University of Cincinnati, Department of Psychology, 5140K Edwards I Building, 45 W. Corry Blvd., Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA e Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, 1309 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02445, USA f University of Louisville, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, 301G Life Sciences Building, Louisville, KY 40292, USA b
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Mindfulness Affect Positive affect Mechanism Emotion regulation
Mindfulness is correlated with better emotion regulation and mindfulness training improves emotion regulation; however, mechanisms of these effects have not been widely studied. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine the indirect effect of greater mindfulness on fewer emotion regulation difficulties through positive affect. Participants were 219 undergraduate students (Mage = 19.20; 70.5% female; 91.5% Caucasian) who completed self-report measures for course credit. Results indicated a significant direct effect of mindfulness on emotion dysregulation (b = −1.71, t = −6.94, p < .001) and significant indirect effect of greater mindfulness on fewer emotion regulation problems through higher levels of positive affect (indirect effect = −0.50; SE = 0.13; 95% CI = −0.80 to −0.28). These results help to generate testable hypotheses for future mechanistic research in this area by suggesting that one way trait mindfulness may protect against emotion dysregulation could be by cultivating positive affect. Future research using longitudinal designs is needed to explore positive affect as a causal mechanism.
1. Introduction Difficulties with emotion regulation are a critical factor in the development and maintenance of several forms of psychopathology (Fernandez, Jazaieri, & Gross, 2016; Gross, 2015; Gross & Jazaieri, 2014; Jazaieri, Urry, & Gross, 2013). Indeed, greater difficulties with emotion regulation are associated with greater levels of anxiety and mood disorder symptoms, beyond the effects of negative affect itself (Aldao & Christensen, 2015; Mennin, Holaway, Fresco, Moore, & Heimberg, 2007; O'Bryan, McLeish, Kraemer, & Fleming, 2015). As such, research has begun to examine methods for improving emotion regulation. One factor that has been examined extensively in this regard is trait mindfulness. Mindfulness involves the self-regulation of attention toward present moment experiences with an attitude of non-judgment and curiosity (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006; Bishop et al., 2004; Kabat-Zinn, 1982). Trait mindfulness refers to the general ability to be mindful in daily life, and can be increased through
⁎
regular practice in formal (e.g., body scan, mindful breathing) and informal mindfulness meditations (e.g., mindful walking, mindful eating; Brown and Ryan, 2003; Nyklíček, van Beugen, & Denollet, 2013; Shapiro, Brown, Thoresen, & Plante, 2011). Greater levels of trait mindfulness are associated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties across clinical and non-clinical populations (Baer et al., 2006; Coffey & Hartman, 2008; Erisman & Roemer, 2012). There is also evidence that trait mindfulness promotes healthy emotion regulation. For example, Arch and Craske (2006, 2010) found that trait mindfulness was associated with reduced emotional reactivity and improved distress tolerance in response to distressing laboratory tasks. Increases in trait mindfulness following mindfulness-based interventions have also been associated with improvements in emotion regulation (Kumar, Feldman, & Hayes, 2008; Robins, Keng, Ekblad, & Brantley, 2012; Roemer, Williston, & Rollins, 2015). However, the exact mechanisms through which trait mindfulness protects against emotion regulation difficulties remain unclear. Positive affectivity, defined as the tendency to experience positive affective
Corresponding author at: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, 301G Life Sciences Building, Louisville, KY 40292, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.C. McLeish).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.03.020 Received 22 August 2018; Received in revised form 10 January 2019; Accepted 16 March 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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psychopathology research (Watson, 2000). In the present study, participants were instructed to assess affect experienced over the past year. Both the positive (PANAS-PA) and negative affect (PANAS-NA) subscales were used as an index of one's general disposition to experience positive (e.g., interested, enthusiastic, inspired, proud) and negative (e.g., anger, anxiety, depression, guilt) affective states. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all to 5 = extremely). Internal consistency for both the PANAS-PA (α = 0.87) and PANAS-NA (α = 0.88) in the current sample were good.
states, such as joy, enthusiasm, and alertness (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) may serve as one mechanism. Greater levels of trait mindfulness have been associated with greater levels of positive affect in clinical and non-clinical adult populations (Erisman & Roemer, 2010, 2012; Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2010; Zeng & Gu, 2017). Moreover, there is temporal evidence of causal effects. In ecological momentary assessment studies, increases in trait mindfulness have been shown to precede increases in positive affect (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Keng & Tong, 2016; Weinstein, Brown, & Ryan, 2009), and mind wandering in one moment (i.e., thinking about something other than what one is doing) has been shown to predict decreases in happiness in the next moment (Snippe et al., 2015). Further, mindfulness training has been shown to increase positive affect among both clinical and nonclinical populations (Davidson et al., 2003; Geschwind, Peeters, Drukker, van Os, & Wichers, 2011; Ietsugu et al., 2015; Zautra et al., 2008). There is also evidence to suggest that positive affect can improve emotion regulation. Per Fredrickson's (1998, 2004) broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions repair the harmful psychophysiological consequences of negative emotions by broadening one's outlook and building one's psychological resources (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2007). By building healthy psychological resources, positive affect may promote improvements in emotion regulation because individuals become better able to access and utilize effective skills to manage distressing psychological states. In line with this theory, greater positive affect is associated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties (Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003; Hamilton, Burke, Stange, Kleiman, & Alloy, 2017; Ong, Bergeman, Bisconti, & Wallace, 2006; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2007), and increases in positive affect lead to improvements in emotion regulation processes (Batink, Peeters, Geschwind, van Os, & Wichers, 2013; Garland, Geschwind, Peeters, & Wichers, 2015). Taken together, extant research suggests that greater trait mindfulness can lead to greater positive affect and, in turn, fewer emotion regulation difficulties. Thus, positive affect may be implicated in the relationship between mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. While establishing an indirect effect of positive affect cannot provide causal inferences about positive affect as a mechanism—it can help identify measurable targets for future longitudinal mechanistic research. Therefore, we conducted an exploratory study of the role of positive affect in the inverse association between mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. We hypothesized that, after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, there would be a significant indirect effect of greater levels of trait mindfulness on fewer emotion regulation difficulties through higher levels of positive affect.
2.2.2. Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) The DERS (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) is a 36-item self-report measure that assesses difficulties regulating negative emotional states. Emotion regulation difficulties are assessed across six domains: 1) lack of emotional clarity (e.g., “I am clear about my feelings” – reverse scored); 2) lack of emotional awareness (e.g., “I pay attention to how I feel” – reverse scored); 3) impulsivity (e.g., “When I'm upset, I become out of control”); 4) non-acceptance of emotional responses (e.g., “When I'm upset, I become embarrassed for feeling that way”); 5) difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior (e.g., “When I'm upset, I have difficulty focusing on other things”); and 6) limited access to emotion regulation strategies (e.g., “When I'm upset, I believe I will remain that way for a long time”). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = almost never to 5 = almost always). The DERS total score was used in the current study, with higher scores representing greater difficulties regulating emotions. The DERS has demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and adequate construct validity (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Internal consistency for the DERS in the current study was excellent (α = 0.95).
2.2.3. Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R) The CAMS-R (Feldman, Hayes, Kumar, Greeson, & Laurenceau, 2007) is a 12-item self-report measure of trait mindfulness. Items assess mindfulness across four domains: 1) the regulation of attention (e.g., “It's easy for me to keep track of my thoughts and feelings”); 2) presentmoment attention (e.g., “I am able to focus on the present moment”); 3) awareness of experience (e.g., “I can usually describe how I feel at the moment in considerable detail”); and 4) acceptance and nonjudgment of experience (e.g., “I try to notice my thoughts without judging them”). Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = rarely/not at all to 4 = almost always). Higher scores reflect greater trait mindfulness. The CAMS-R total score has demonstrated good psychometric properties, including good convergent and discriminant validity in terms of associations with other mindfulness measures, well-being, emotion regulation, problem-solving and distress (Feldman et al., 2007). Internal consistency for the CAMS-R in the current study was good (α = 0.80).
2. Method 2.1. Participants
2.3. Procedure
Participants were 219 undergraduate psychology students (70.8% female; Mage = 19.20, SD = 1.73, Range = 18–33). In terms of the racial composition of the sample, 90% self-identified as Caucasian, 5.9% as Asian, 1.4% as African American, 1.8% as multiracial, and 0.9% did not specify. 1.8% of the sample reported Hispanic ethnicity.
Undergraduate students at a large, Midwestern university who were aged 18 and older and enrolled in psychology courses with a research requirement were eligible to participate in the study for course credit. Detailed information about the study was available on a psychology department research study site (i.e., Sona), where interested students signed up and were provided with a link to complete the study measures online through a secure Web-based survey platform (i.e., Qualtrics). Participants' IP addresses were protected to ensure anonymity. The Institutional Review Board approved all study materials and procedures prior to data collection. Nine validity items were included throughout the survey to detect careless responding (e.g., “I am using a computer currently”; Meade & Craig, 2012). Although 312 participants completed the study, 73 participants were excluded from the analyses for failing to either 1) indicate their data was reliable, or 2) respond correctly to all nine validity items.
2.2. Measures1 2.2.1. Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) The PANAS (Watson et al., 1988) is a 20-item self-report measure of broad-based positive and negative mood states commonly used in 1 The measures assessed in this study, described below, were selected from a broader empirical project focused on emotions and health-related outcomes, for which a complete list of measures collected may be obtained upon request.
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the completely standardized indirect effect revealed a medium effect size (abcs = −0.12).
2.4. Data analytic plan First, zero-order correlations were conducted to examine associations between all study variables. Next, a mediation analysis was computed to examine the indirect effect of mindfulness (predictor variable [X]) on emotion regulation difficulties (criterion variable [Y]) through positive affect (proposed mediator [M]). Negative affectivity was included as a covariate due to well-documented associations between this variable and positive affect (Gentzler, Ramsey, Yi, Palmer, & Morey, 2014; Russell & Carroll, 1999) and emotion dysregulation (Bradley et al., 2011; Westen, Muderrisoglu, Fowler, Shedler, & Koren, 1997). The indirect effect was tested using PROCESS, a conditional process modeling program that tests direct and indirect effects using an ordinary least squares-based (OLS) path analytical framework (Hayes, 2013; Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Bias-corrected bootstrapping (k = 10,000) was used to generate a 95% confidence interval (CI) to test the significance of the indirect effect (Preacher & Hayes, 2004, 2008). As a measure of effect size, the completely standardized indirect effect was used (abcs; Preacher & Kelley, 2011), with small, medium, and large effects defined as 0.01, 0.09, and 0.25, respectively (Kenny, 2014).
4. Discussion The benefits of greater trait mindfulness for emotion regulation have been widely documented, but limited research has focused on explicating potential mechanisms of these effects. This exploratory cross-sectional study is the first to examine the indirect effect of positive affect in the relationship between trait mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. Consistent with our hypotheses, there was a significant indirect effect of trait mindfulness on emotion dysregulation through positive affectivity, which accounted for 22.9% of the relationship between mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. These findings suggest that greater positive emotions may impact the extent to which trait mindfulness protects against emotion regulation difficulties. Through promoting a present moment orientation, trait mindfulness may enhance one's capacity to notice positive emotions and experiences occurring in everyday life, which may otherwise go unnoticed due to the strong potential for negativity bias (i.e., selective attention toward negative experiences; Gollan et al., 2016; Ito, Larsen, Smith, & Cacioppo, 1998). Moreover, the open, curious, and nonjudgmental attitude of mindfulness may allow individuals to notice neutral experiences with a more positive valence, further increasing positive affect (Arch & Craske, 2006; Erisman & Roemer, 2010; Huffziger et al., 2013). As mentioned above, promoting greater positive affectivity may then, in turn, broaden one's outlook and build psychological resources to promote healthy emotional responding (Fredrickson, 1998, 2004). Limitations to the current study are worth noting. First, this study was based on one measure and conceptualization of trait mindfulness. Although the measure is well-validated, we were unable to assess specific mindfulness skills; thus, future research is needed to determine whether specific mindfulness facets differentially relate to positive affect and emotion regulation. The validity of trait mindfulness measures also remains an important topic of discussion (Davidson, 2010; Grossman & Van Dam, 2011; Van Dam, Hobkirk, Danoff-Burg, & Earleywine, 2012). While we acknowledge the difficulty inherent in self-report mindfulness measures, recent research demonstrates the continued relevance of assessing dispositional mindfulness and its potential for change through the practice of meditation and other mindfulness training (Kiken, Garland, Bluth, Palsson, & Gaylord, 2015; Quaglia, Braun, Freeman, McDaniel, & Brown, 2016; Shapiro et al., 2011). Moreover, self-report measures provide an effective means for examining the variation of mindfulness as a dispositional characteristic in non-clinical samples (Baer et al., 2006) and populations with differing degrees of exposure to mindfulness-related facets (Bergomi, Tschacher, & Kupper, 2013), expanding our insight into mindfulness mechanisms across diverse samples. Second, the current sample consisted of non-clinical undergraduate students, who were primarily female and Caucasian. Further research is needed to evaluate the study hypotheses using more gender and
3. Results See Table 1 for descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among all study variables. Greater negative affectivity was significantly correlated with lower levels of mindfulness, lower levels of positive affect, and greater difficulties with emotion regulation. Greater mindfulness was significantly correlated with greater positive affectivity and fewer emotion regulation difficulties. Higher levels of positive affectivity were also significantly correlated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties. See Fig. 1 for a depiction of the mediation analysis. Results indicated that approximately 60% of the variance in emotion dysregulation was accounted for by the predictors (i.e., full model; R2 = 0.60, df = 3, 215, F = 106.31, p < .001) were significant. When controlling for negative affectivity, greater levels of mindfulness significantly predicted fewer emotion regulation difficulties (path c; t = −8.94, p < .001). Greater levels of mindfulness also significantly predicted higher levels of positive affectivity (path a; t = 5.54, p < .001). Finally, greater levels of positive affectivity were significantly associated with fewer emotion regulation difficulties, above and beyond the effects of negative affectivity and mindfulness (path b; b = −0.96, t = −5.76, p < .001). Negative affectivity was a significant covariate for paths c (b = 1.10, t = 5.65, p < .001) and b (b = 1.14, t = 6.28, p < .001). Mindfulness remained a significant predictor of emotion regulation difficulties when controlling for the mediator (path c’; t = −6.94, p < .001). In terms of the indirect effect, higher levels of mindfulness were significantly predictive of fewer emotion regulation difficulties indirectly through greater positive affectivity (indirect effect = −0.50; SE = 0.13; 95% CI = −0.81 to −0.28), accounting for 22.64% of the total effect of mindfulness on emotion dysregulation. Examination of Table 1 Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among all study variables.
1. 2. 3. 4.
PANAS-NA CAMS-R PANAS-PA DERS
1
2
3
4
M
SD
Observed range
Possible range
– – – –
−0.57⁎⁎ – – –
−0.26⁎⁎ 0.43⁎⁎ – –
0.60⁎⁎ −0.68⁎⁎ −0.52⁎⁎ –
22.47 30.74⁎ 34.79 84.53
6.86 5.39 6.77 23.65
11–41 17–46 16–48 39–161
10–50 12–48 10–50 36–180
Note: PANAS-NA: Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule-Negative Affect subscale (Watson et al., 1988); CAMS-R: Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness ScaleRevised (Feldman et al., 2007); PANAS-PA: Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule-Positive Affect subscale (Watson et al., 1988); DERS: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01. 72
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Positive Affect
a = .52 (.41)***, SE = .09
b = -.96 (-.28)***, SE = .17
c’ = -1.71 (-.39)***, SE = .25 Mindfulness c = -2.21 (-.50)***, SE = .25
Emotion Regulation Difficulties
Fig. 1. Diagram of simple mediation analysis of mindfulness on emotion regulation difficulties through positive affect.
ethnically diverse populations, ideally from community or clinical samples. Third, this study did not evaluate the frequency of positive emotions in real-time, but rather the tendency to experience positive affect. We reasoned that greater trait positive affect would reflect more frequent moments of positive affect in daily life, and that a measure of dispositional positive affect would more properly suit the trait-like mindfulness and emotion regulation constructs used. It may be worthwhile for future studies to explore the role of state-level positive affect (e.g., via EMA studies). Fourth, we did not consider possible confounding variables influencing individual differences in mindfulness, positive affect, and emotion regulation, such as personality traits (Giluk, 2009), diet and physical activity (Klatt, Buckworth, & Malarkey, 2009), and attention regulation (Hölzel et al., 2011). Future studies should control for these and other confounding factors. Lastly, the current study relied on cross-sectional data, and thus causality and directionality of the relationships among mindfulness, positive affect, and emotion regulation difficulties cannot be determined. Several studies have demonstrated that changes in mindfulness precede changes in affective outcomes and emotion regulation processes (Arch & Craske, 2006, 2010; Robins et al., 2012), providing support for our model. At the same time, it is possible that these relationships are bidirectional and future longitudinal research should test competing models to clarify both the direction and specific mechanisms of each pathway, e.g., whether positive affect leads to improved emotion regulation or vice versa. Despite these limitations, the current results extend the mindfulness-emotion regulation literature by offering testable, evidence-based hypotheses for future research on mechanisms of mindfulness training for emotional outcomes.
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