Mindful awareness moderates the association between psychological inflexibility and distress variables: A cross-sectional investigation

Abstract

Objective

Informed by the contextual behavioral science (CBS) model of behavioral health, the present cross-sectional study examined whether mindful awareness moderated the associations between psychological inflexibility and four distress variables.

Participants

Cross-sectional data were collected from 402 ethnically diverse undergraduate college students from September 2015 to October 2015.

Methods

Participants competed an online self-report survey.

Results

Mindful awareness moderated the associations between psychological inflexibility and distress variables, with stronger associations for somatization and anxiety, and weaker associations for general distress and depression. Specifically, the strength of the positive associations between psychological inflexibility and these distress variables were substantially greater among those low in mindful awareness.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that a greater degree of mindful awareness may buffer the effects of psychological inflexibility on distress variables, particularly somatization and anxiety. Theoretical and applied implications as well as limitations of the study are discussed.

Keywords:

• experiential avoidance
• mindful awareness
• psychological distress
• psychological inflexibility

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.

Compliance with ethical standards

Research Involving Human Participants. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Author Contribution. AM: designed and executed the study, assisted with data analysis, and wrote the paper. JB: analyzed the data and wrote part of the results. JV: collaborated on the design, wrote the paper. TM, MJ & SS: collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

Data Availability Statement. All data are available at the open science framework.