The Relationship between Dispositional Mindfulness and Well-Being in a Sample of College Students

Abstract

In recent years, construct mindfulness has emerged as one of the main focus of study within the positive psychology movement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and wellbeing in a sample of college students. The sample comprised 275 under graduate students (204 =Female; 76=Male; 5= unreported; in the age range18 to 29 years) from three colleges in Southern India. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale( MAAS) was used to measure dispositional mindfulness. Further wellbeing was measure using Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS) and Short Depression Happiness Scale (SDHS). Spearman correlation coefficients were used to examine the association between mindfulness and well-being domains. Dispositional mindfulness was positively and significantly correlated with well-being related constructs SWEMWBS (rs = .46) and happiness (rs = .42) (all p's < .01). The results showed that participants higher on mindfulness had greater concordance with well-being.