Do Highly Mindful Individuals Experience Less Interference as a Result of Better Attention Control and Emotion Regulation?
Abstract
Mindfulness has been found to be beneficial to psychological health. Furthermore,
research suggests that mindfulness is associated with better attention control and fewer
difficulties in emotion regulation. The purpose of the current study was twofold. First I
investigated whether attention control and emotion regulation are mechanisms of mindfulness
that aid performance on two cognitive tasks. Second, I investigated whether mindfulness
moderates the relationship between rumination, a risk factor for mental health, and cognitive
interference. In this study, participants completed two cognitive tasks that measure interference
from emotional stimuli. They also completed self-report questionnaires that measure levels of
mindfulness, attention control, difficulties in emotion regulation, and rumination. The results
indicated that mindfulness was related to attention control, difficulties in emotion regulation and
rumination. However, mindfulness did not predict attentional performance as measured by
cognitive interference. It was also found that mindfulness did not moderate the impact of
rumination on cognitive performance.