The Relationship Between Emotion Regulation, Attachment and Attention on Dispositional Mindfulness in Adolescents.

Abstract

Mindfulness can be conceptualised as a dispositional trait. Mindfulness has been associated with beneficial positive outcomes in regard to emotion regulation, attachment security and attention. Furthermore, literature has established independent correlations for attachment and emotion regulation in dispositional mindfulness in adult populations, although this has not yet been addressed on an adolescent sample. The present study investigated the effect of emotion regulation, attachment security and attention on dispositional mindfulness in an adolescent sample. 206 participants (average age= 13.48, female = 51.9%, male = 48.1%) completed the Cognitive Affective Mindfulness Scale Revised (CAMSR), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-RS) and the Attentional Control Scale (ACS). Four linear regressions were conducted in which each CAMSR subscale (attention, present focus, awareness and acceptance) was regressed onto the predictor variables. The highest percentage of variance was recorded for the CAMSR subscale of attention (43.9%) and lowest for present focus (16.7%), whilst the scales of awareness and acceptance presented variance of 27.7% and 25.8% respectively.