The mindful adolescent: Developmental changes in nonreactivity to inner experiences and its association with emotional well-being.

Abstract

Little is known about the naturalistic development of mindfulness in adolescence and how it relates to changes in emotional well-being. The current longitudinal study examined the development of one dimension of mindfulness, nonreactivity to difficult inner experience (or in more colloquial terms, being able to notice, but "take a step back" from distressing thoughts), in a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample (N ϭ 1,657) during the transition from middle school to high school. Students participated in up to four assessment waves, from fall of 8th grade through spring of 9th grade, in which they completed self-report measures assessing nonreactivity, perceived stress, and positive and negative affect. Latent growth curve models indicated that levels of nonreactivity increased during the 2-year study period. Developmental change in nonreactivity varied minimally by gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and race/ethnicity. Parallel process latent growth curve models showed that changes in nonreactivity were associated with concomitant reductions in perceived stress and negative affect, and increases in positive affect. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that within-person nonreactivity prospectively predicted changes in perceived stress and positive affect, but not negative affect. This study is among the first to track the naturalistic development of mindfulness during adolescence. Results suggest that the nonreactivity dimension of mindfulness is associated with aspects of emotional wellbeing during the transition from middle school to high school.

The comprehensive mindfulness experience: A typological approach to the potential benefits of mindfulness for dealing with motivational conflicts.

“…Based on these considerations, it seems critical for researchers to explicitly delineate the experience of motivational conflict, as a potential stressor, from the cognitive-affective evaluation of these conflict experiences, in terms of conflict reactivity (cf., Becker et al, 2019; Galla et al, 2020; Galla & Wood, 2015). In the following, we explain why entertaining such a differentiated perspective should also be important for individuals.…”

Affective Profiles and Anxiety or Non-Anxiety-Related Reasons for School Refusal Behavior: Latent Profile Analysis in Spanish Adolescents

“…Considering the results, it is important to diminish these levels of negative affect in students by means of techniques or strategies that have shown to be beneficial for positive affect and detrimental for negative affect. These strategies would include cognitive restructuring, mindfulness, and the promotion of self-esteem and motivation, among others (Shikatani et al, 2014;Gómez-Baya et al, 2018;Galla et al, 2020). Likewise, it would be advisable to use programs such as INTEMO (Ruiz-Aranda et al, 2013), which aims to develop emotional skills in adolescents and has shown positive results in reducing certain attitudes toward school dysfunction and other variables such as anxiety, stress, or depression.…”

Exploring different types of school refusers through latent profile analysis and school-related stress associations

“…For instance, the mindfulness-based interventions have revealed significant reductions in stress levels. [53][54][55] For the remaining profiles, although it was to be expected that the Low School Refusal Behavior would be the most representative profile (47.7%) because of the type of a community sample, it is important to note that a very high percentage of students (46.6%) belongs to the School Refusal Behavior by Positive Reinforcement. This group is characterized by pursuing tangible reinforcements outside of school.…”