Mindfulness Profiles Among Chinese University Students: Exploring Differences in Phenomenon, Cognition, and Performance of Mind Wandering

This study investigated the latent profiles of mindfulness in a sample of Chinese university students and explored the links between specific mindfulness profiles and mind wandering outcomes through a combination of questionnaires and behavioral experiments.

University students (n = 1557; 67% women; M_age = 21.27 ± 1.14 years) completed various measures addressing mind wandering, cognitive errors, mindfulness, and the sustained attention response task (SART).

Latent profile analysis identified four mindfulness profiles: moderate mindfulness (33%, n = 519), observing/describing (20%, n = 314), judgmentally observing (12%, n = 182), and high non-judgmentally aware (35%, n = 543). Findings demonstrated that the high non-judgmentally aware profile was associated with less mind wandering, fewer cognitive errors, lower omission and commission errors, and less reaction time variability in the SART. Contrastingly, students with the judgmentally observing profile demonstrated more frequent mind wandering, more cognitive errors, higher omission and commission errors, and more reaction time variability.

High non-judgmentally aware was the most adaptive profile, while the judgmentally observing profile was the most maladaptive profile. The high non-judgmentally aware students differed from people with judgmentally observing in levels of non-judging, suggesting non-judging might be associated with reduced mind wandering, which implies that it is necessary to bring forward personalized mindfulness interventions in accordance with specific problems.