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Self-acceptance and nonreactive observing predict adolescent psychopathology over and above the big five

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Abstract

We sought to determine the relationship between dispositional mindfulness, Big Five personality traits, and psychopathology in a sample of adolescents at high risk for mood and anxiety disorders. The incremental utility of dispositional mindfulness in predicting psychopathology over and above the Big Five was investigated using a facet-level approach. One hundred and thirty-one adolescents (M = 13.76, SD = 1.65) who had a parent with a history of mood or anxiety disorders completed measures of dispositional mindfulness and facets of mindfulness (i.e., attention and awareness, nonreactivity, nonjudgement, and self-acceptance), the Big Five model of personality, psychopathology (i.e., internalizing, externalizing, and total problems scales), and mindfulness experience. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed. Controlling for sex, mindfulness experience, and theory driven Big Five factors, higher dispositional mindfulness related to fewer internalizing, externalizing, and total problems. Mindfulness facet self-acceptance was key to this association. Nonreactivity moderated effects of attention and awareness, such that higher attention and awareness correlated to fewer internalizing and total problems only when nonreactivity was also high. Therefore, self-acceptance and nonreactive observing may be unique components of mindfulness that have implications for adolescent psychopathological symptoms, even controlling for well-established personality vulnerability factors. Future adolescent mindfulness intervention research and practice should emphasize techniques that involve observation while concurrently enhancing nonreactivity and self-acceptance.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was supported by funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Brain and Behaviour Research Foundation, awarded to Dr. Daniel Kopala-Sibley. Jade Stein was supported by a Branch Out Neurological Foundation Master’s Grant and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Master’s Scholarship.

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All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board (CHREB) certificate number REB17–2377.

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Stein, J.A., Tomfohr-Madsen, L.M., Bray, S. et al. Self-acceptance and nonreactive observing predict adolescent psychopathology over and above the big five. Curr Psychol 41, 7185–7199 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01291-1

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