Mindfulness Predicting Physical and Psychological Health in Emerging Adulthood: Understanding Mechanisms of Mindfulness using a Mediation Model

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATIONMindfulness Predicting Physical and Psychological Health in Emerging Adulthood: Understanding Mechanisms of Mindfulness using a Mediation Modelby Christie Lynn LundwallDoctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in PsychologyUniversity of California, Riverside, December 2011Dr. Ruth K. Chao, ChairpersonThis study tested a theory derived multiple step structural equation model of four potential mediators of the relation from mindfulness to emotional distress, physical health, and well-being during emerging adulthood in 440 college students. Specifically, two models (a basic mediation model and the hypothesized theory based model) were tested and compared to determine whether and in what ways goal-directed self-regulation, cognitive emotion regulation, stress reduction, and sleep quality mediated the relation of mindfulness to health and well-being variables. Separate models were run for the three outcome variables, and in each case the hypothesized theoretical mediation model was a better fit of the data than the basic mediation models was. As hypothesized by the model, the two types of self-regulation, goal-directed and cognitive emotional, fully mediated the relation from mindfulness to stress-reduction, as the direct relation became non-significant once these variables were included in the model. Next, stress reduction was found to either fully or partially mediate the relations from both types of self-regulation to sleep quality, emotional distress, physical health, and well-being. Stress reduction then had a strong direct relation to all three latent health outcomes. While the patterns of results for the hypothesized models were somewhat similar across the three outcomes, there were also some interesting differences in the degree to which each mediator was influential. For example, while cognitive emotion regulation had substantial indirect relations through stress reduction to all outcomes, it was only directly related to emotional distress. In contrast, goal-directed self-regulation had smaller indirect relation to the outcomes, and was directly related to physical health and well-being, but not emotional distress. Moreover, sleep quality had small significant direct relations to emotional and physical health, but not well-being. Altogether, these data supported a meaningful role of mindfulness in emotional distress, physical health, and well-being during emerging adulthood, while illuminating several mechanisms by which it likely influenced these outcomes