An Investigation of Relations Among Quality of Life and Individual Facets of Emotional Awareness and Mindfulness

The current study examined relations among individual facets of emotional awareness and mindfulness, and associations between these facets and quality of life. Facets of emotional awareness include: Attention to emotions, Understanding of type, Understanding of source, Negative differentiation, and Positive differentiation. Facets of mindfulness include: Observing, Describing, Acting with awareness, Non-judgment, and Non-reactivity. Among a college student sample (n = 979), we found that: (a) emotional awareness facets and mindfulness facets were consistently, moderately associated; and (b) Understanding of type, Positive differentiation, Describing, Acting with Awareness, Non-judgment, and Non-reactivity incrementally predicted quality of life when accounting for variance shared between them. Results suggest that emotional awareness and mindfulness facets are inter-dependent and generally contribute to quality of life in associated, but non-redundant ways.