The mindful personality: Associations between dispositional mindfulness and the Five Factor Model of personality

Highlights

• The relationship between dispositional mindfulness and personality was explored.

• Attention was paid to associations between the mindfulness facets and personality.

• Dispositional mindfulness was significantly correlated with each personality factor.

• Mindfulness neuroticism and conscientiousness were related most strongly.

• Three clusters of association emerged between the mindfulness facets and personality.

Abstract

While curiosity about the correlates of mindfulness continues to grow, how mindfulness is related to personality factors remains unclear. Indeed, the relationships between dispositional mindfulness (DM) and one of the most common conceptualizations of personality, the Five Factor Model (FFM) have yielded mixed results. It may be that these mixed findings have resulted from a lack of analytic specificity. This study explored the relationship between DM and the FFM of personality, paying particular attention to the analysis of the mindfulness facets with respect to the FFM using canonical correlation analysis. The total DM score was found to be significantly correlated with each personality factor, with the strongest relationships observed between DM and neuroticism (negatively associated) as well as DM and conscientiousness (positively associated). The canonical correlation analysis provided further evidence of the relationship between DM and the FFM at a finer level of specificity. Three clusters of association emerged between the DM facets and the personality factors: 1) a self-regulation cluster, negatively associated with neuroticism and positively associated with conscientiousness, 2) a self-awareness cluster positively associated with openness, and 3) the conscientious confusion cluster, demonstrated a mixed relationship between conscientiousness and the mindful self-regulation cluster.

Introduction

How mindfulness is related to personality remains unclear, despite mounting evidence of the benefits of mindfulness (e.g., Eberth & Sedlmeier, 2012). Better understanding the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and personality is believed to have significant clinical utility, potentially providing important predictive information with respect to clinical concerns such as suicide (Tucker et al., 2014). However, the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and one of the most common conceptualizations of personality, the Five Factor Model (FFM), has yielded mixed, and sometimes conflicting, results (Giluk, 2009). It has been suggested that these mixed findings may result from measurement concerns, such as differential construct validity (Siegling & Petrides, 2014), or insufficiently detailed analyses (Giluk, 2009). This study will primarily address the second concern by extending previous analyses of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Five Factor Model of personality to more comprehensively examine the relationships among each mindfulness facet and factor of personality using canonical correlation analysis.

Dispositional mindfulness in the West is commonly defined as the tendency to “[pay] attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4). Operationally, five facets are commonly taken to constitute dispositional mindfulness: observing experience, describing internal experiences, acting with awareness, being non-reactive, and being non-judgmental (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006).

Vago and Silbersweig (2012) suggest that mindfulness encourages greater self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART), a collection of capacities believed to support greater well-being. Greater self-awareness is thought to promote greater self-regulation, which in turn allows for the transcendence of maladaptive behavioral and cognitive patterns (Vago & Silbersweig, 2012). Applying the S-ART framework to the FFMQ's mindfulness facets, suggests that the facets could be conceptually grouped into self-aware and self-regulatory clusters. The mindfulness facets of observing and describing could be taken to constitute the self-awareness cluster, primarily reflecting attunement with internal and external experiences. The acting with awareness, non-reacting and non-judging facets could be taken to constitute the self-regulation cluster, suggestive of the tendency to respond intentionally to internal and external behavioral cues.

The Five Factor Model (FFM), including 1) neuroticism, 2) extraversion, 3) openness, 4) agreeableness, and 5) conscientiousness, is the most thoroughly researched conceptualization of personality (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). The only extant meta-analysis investigating personality and dispositional mindfulness suggests neuroticism is negatively associated with DM; conscientiousness and agreeableness are positively associated with DM; and extraversion and openness demonstrate only weak, positive relationships with DM (Giluk, 2009). While these findings provide preliminary evidence of the broad relationships between dispositional mindfulness and the FFM, the conflation of unidimensional and multidimensional mindfulness measures as well as inattention to the mindfulness subdomain scores may have resulted in imprecise results. Indeed, Siegling and Petrides' (2014) investigation of the associations between seven different DM scales and the FFM concluded that, “differences in the breadth of these measures could lead to divergent patterns of associations and uncertainty about the relationships between mindfulness and the FFM” (Siegling & Petrides, 2014, p. 5). However, continued exploration of the relationship between the mindfulness facets and personality factors has been lacking.

Two exceptions can be found in Tucker et al.'s (2014) and van den Hurk et al.'s (2011) analyses of the relationships between the individual mindfulness facets and the personality factors. Tucker et al. (2014) reported basic correlational relationships, observing that all the mindfulness facets appeared related to the elements of personality, with certain mindfulness facets (i.e., describing, non-judging, non-reacting) more closely associated with the personality factors than others (i.e. observing). The majority of significant associations were positive. Neuroticism was the only personality factor evidencing negative associations with the mindfulness facets. Van den Hurk et al. (2011) explored the influence of meditation practice on the relationship between DM and the FFM. Using the KIMS, a multidimensional measure of mindfulness that preceded the FFMQ, van den Hurk et al. (2011) found each of the mindfulness facets to mediate the relationship between meditation and personality factors. Similar to Tucker et al.'s (2014) findings, specific mindfulness facets (i.e., describing, observing, acting with awareness) were stronger mediators than others (i.e., accepting without judgment).

Broadly, van den Hurk et al.'s (2011) results, along with Tucker et al.'s (2014) findings suggest that exploration at the facet level provides greater explanatory clarity, clarity they may be lost in analyses relying solely on total scores. Specifically, both studies highlight the relationship between the mindfulness facet of describing and the FFM. However, Tucker et al. (2014) also found non-judging to be highly associated with the FFM, while van den Hurk et al.'s (2011) analysis emphasized the importance of the observing and acting with awareness facets. A more dedicated exploration of the relationships between the facets of mindfulness and personality factors may provide insight into previously reported inconsistencies in the observed relationships between dispositional mindfulness and the FFM. Indeed, Giluk (2009) suggests that exploring the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and personality at the dimensional level may be more illuminating. This suggestion was more recently echoed with respect to exploring the mindfulness facets in general (Baer, Lykins, & Peters, 2012). Ultimately, as the nomological net surrounding mindfulness continues to expand, complimentary analyses of narrowing specificity are also needed to more fully clarify the relationships between mindfulness and established correlates. This study extends previous investigations of mindfulness and personality by, specifically attending to the analysis of the mindfulness facets with respect to the FFM. Most precisely, the relationship between conscientiousness and the facets of mindfulness were attended to, as relatively few investigations of this relationship have been conducted (Giluk, 2009) despite both constructs emphasizing self-regulatory tendencies (Giluk, 2009) and attending to the present moment (Latzman & Masuda, 2013).