Mindfulness is both a non-judgmental and present-centered awareness, which has been applied to reduce negative emotions. On the other hand, Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) is the way of how good people perceive their emotional intelligence abilities (perceiving, expressing, understanding, and regulating emotions), which are involved in people's social functioning. This empirical study was designed to analyze whether dispositional mindfulness (DM) and TEI have a potential combined role for children and adolescent's emotional states. In a sample of primary school students (N = 318), age ranged from 8 to 16 years old (M = 11.25, SD = 2.20), participants filled a TEI measure (ESCQ, Emotional skills and competence questionnaire) and two measures of DM (CAMM, Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure and AFQ-Y, Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth). Measures selected included: PANAS (Positive affect and negative affect schedule), White Bear Suppression Inventory (a thought suppression inventory), and STAIC (State-Trait Anxiety for Children). Findings pointed out that TEI measures (labeling and expression, understanding, and managing emotions) were positively and significantly related to positive emotional states (especially, positive affect and balance) and negatively with a lower association with state anxiety. However, DM measures were both negatively and strongly associated with negative emotional states (thought suppression, negative affect, and anxiety). Conclusions indicate that a combined effect of both TEI skills and DM based interventions would be more complete than each one separately for better social functioning of children and teenagers.

No abstract

Dispositional Mindfulness (DM) is the awareness of the thoughts and feelings in the present moment. DM in children and adolescents has been related to mechanisms of change in mindfulness-based interventions, which have shown significant mediation relationships with mental health outcomes (for instance, lower social anxiety, depression symptoms, or perceived stress). However, the assessment of DM among children and adolescents is being unsatisfactory due cultural biases and/or reliability issues. In this study, we examined the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM) in a sample of 687 children and adolescents between 8 and 16 years old. Although the CAMM has been validated in English, Portuguese, Italian, and Catalonian versions, until now no data has been reported in a Spanish context. Results showed that the best CAMM factor structure was constituted by five items from the original version (1, 4, 7, 8, and 9). These items defined dispositional mindfulness. The rest of the items (2, 3, 5, 6, and 10) were eliminated from the Spanish final version. The analyses revealed good reliability and internal consistency for the Spanish version of the CAMM. As we expected, the confirmatory factor analysis showed the unidimensional structure of the CAMM.