Facing the Dreaded: Does Mindfulness Facilitate Coping with Distressing Experiences? A Moderator Analysis

Abstract

Increasing evidence shows that mindfulness is positively related to mental health; however, the nature of this relationship is not fully understood. The current study used structural equation modeling to investigate the hypothesis that mindfulness moderates the association between the occurrence of unavoidable distressing experiences (UDE) and mental health. Participants from a community sample (N = 376) completed the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, the Positive and Negative Affect Scale, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Inventory of Approach and Avoidance Motivation, and the Incongruence Scale. Results indicated that mindfulness moderated the association between unavoidable distressing events and psychopathological symptoms/negative affect. Thus, mindfulness may contribute to enhance the ability to cope with UDE and thus mitigate the detrimental effects of these experiences on mental health.

Psychological distress across twelve months in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: The role of disease activity, disability, and mindfulness

“…The moderator findings seem in line with the buffer effect hypothesis of mindfulness, in which mindfulness would buffer against negative effects of adverse conditions on psychological well-being. This is in line with previous studies in other contexts, reporting a buffer effect against deleterious effects of unavoidable events on psychological well-being [20], also when this concerned a chronic disease, namely multiple sclerosis [21]. Mindfulness has also been found to buffer the effects of stressful laboratory tasks on affective and cortisol responses [22].…”

“…This has been recently found to be especially the case when experienced stress was due to unavoidable events [20], including a chronic disease, such as multiple sclerosis [21]. In addition, also in experimental studies mindfulness was found to buffer the effects of exposure to stressful laboratory tasks, including affective and cortisol responses [22].…”

Cognitive Defusion Predicts More Approach and Less Avoidance Coping With Stress, Independent of Threat and Self‐Efficacy Appraisals

“…other hand, with more benign stressors, cognitive defusion appears to influence both avoidance and approach coping, perhaps because there is insufficient arousal to overwhelm attempts to plan or take effective action. This is consistent with studies finding that mindfulness, a construct that encompasses cognitive defusion (Hayes et al, 2006), predicted significantly less avoidance coping, but not more approach coping, with significant stressors such as university exams (Weinstein et al, 2009), heart disease (Tac on, McComb, Caldera, & Randolph, 2003), and unavoidable, distressing events (Bergomi et al, 2013). The present research sought to apply the recent insights of third-wave behavioral therapies to Lazarus and Folkman's (1987) transactional theory of coping, exploring an as yet untested source of variance in individual responses to stress: cognitive defusion.…”

“…Trait cognitive defusion has been found to correlate with experiential avoidance very highly ( r = .72 to .87 across four samples, Gillanders et al, ), and experiential avoidance in turn predicts less avoidance and greater approach coping (Karekla & Panayiotou, ). In addition, cognitive defusion is moderately to strongly correlated with trait mindfulness ( r = .50 to .70, Gillanders et al, ), which has also been found to predict less avoidance and more approach coping (Bergomi, Ströhle, Michalak, Funke, & Berking, ; Weinstein et al, ). Finally, there is evidence that cognitive defusion inductions predict less emotional discomfort and believability of negative self‐referential thoughts, relative to controls (Mandavia et al, ; Masuda, Feinstein, Wendell, & Sheehan, ; Masuda, Hayes, Sackett, & Twohig, ; Masuda, Twohig, et al, ).…”

Mindfulness and Forgiveness Buffer Distress: Associations With Interpersonal Transgression Blameworthiness

“…Previous researchers have suggested that mindfulness promotes emotion regulation by decreasing rumination and increasing attention capabilities through improvements in working memory and executive control (Davis & Hayes, 2011;Teper, Segal, & Inzlicht, 2013). For example, Bergomi, Ströhle, Michalak, Funke, and Berking (2013) reported that a greater degree of mindfulness was associated with lesser psychopathological symptom load when participants faced unavoidable distressing experiences. Kiken and Shook (2011) studied the association between mindfulness and negativity bias in attitude formation by comparing a group receiving a brief mindfulness exercise with a control group receiving an unfocused attention exercise.…”