Within-person changes in mindfulness and self-compassion predict enhanced emotional well-being in healthy, but stressed adolescents.
Meditation training programs for adolescents are predicated on the assumptions that mindfulness and self-compassion can be directly cultivated, and further, that doing so is beneficial for emotional well-being. Yet, very little research with adolescents has tested these assumptions directly. In the current study, I examined longitudinal relationships between changes in mindfulness and self-compassion and changes in emotional well-being among healthy, but stressed adolescents who participated in five-day, intensive meditation retreats. Immediately before and after the retreats, and then three months later, 132 adolescents (Mage = 16.76 years, 61% female) completed questionnaires measuring mindfulness, self-compassion, and emotional well-being. Repeated measures ANOVA showed adolescents improved in mindfulness, self-compassion, and all indices of emotional well-being immediately following the retreat (Cohen's d = |0.39-1.19|), and many of these improvements were maintained three months later (Cohen's d = |0.04-0.68|). Further, multilevel growth curve analyses with time-varying covariates indicated within-person changes in self-compassion predicted enhanced emotional well-being more consistently than within-person changes in mindfulness. Specifically, increases in self-compassion predicted reductions in perceived stress, rumination, depressive symptoms, and negative affect, and conversely, increases in positive affect and life satisfaction (pseudo-R(2) variance explained = 5.9% and 15.8%, ps < 0.01).
School of Education, University of Pittsburgh, United States. Electronic address: gallabri@pitt.edu.
Brian M
BM
Galla
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000066498:Emotional Adjustment; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019122:Meditation / Q000523:psychology; D064866:Mindfulness; D012649:Self Concept; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*
Adolescent; Emotional well-being; Meditation; Mindfulness; Self-compassion