Mindful Mating: Testing Measurement Invariance and Associations Between Relationship Mindfulness and Relationship Quality Among White and Black Women

Mindfulness research has flourished over the past several decades with prominent effects on health and wellbeing. More recently, mindfulness has been expanded to interpersonal contexts, notably within couples. Relationship mindfulness, or mindfulness within the context of romantic relationships, has also demonstrated significant effects on relationship quality beyond individuals’ dispositional mindfulness. Given the novelty of relationship mindfulness, there has been little psychometric evaluation of couple-oriented mindfulness scales. The goal of the current study was to test measurement invariance of the Relationship Mindfulness Measure (RMM) as well as the Positive–Negative Relationship Quality (PNRQ) across White and Black women. The associations between relationship mindfulness and positive and negative relationship quality were subsequently examined using latent variable modeling.

A sample of 393 women was recruited from two universities (Mean age White = 27.54, Mean age Black = 30.99). A multiple group confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to test measurement invariance, and latent variable structural equation modeling was used to test associations between relationship mindfulness and positive and negative relationship quality.

Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated configural, metric, and scalar invariance across race for both the RMM and PNRQ. Race did not affect the significant associations found between mindfulness and relationship quality.

The results indicate two key findings: (1) Relationship mindfulness was consistent across White and Black women, and (2) the effects of relationship mindfulness on relationship quality did not differ between Black and White women.

This study is not preregistered.