- Title
- How do the five facets of mindfulness and dispositional gratitude relate to depression, anxiety, and stress?
- Creator
- Begg, Madeline Sarah Collings
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2016
- Description
- Masters Research - Master of Clinical Psychology (MClinPsych)
- Description
- Scope: Anxiety disorders and depressive disorders are the two most common kinds of emotional disorders, with 12-month prevalence in Australia of 14.4% for any anxiety disorder and 6.2% for any depressive disorder (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008). As part of the ‘third wave’ of psychological therapies (Hayes, 2004), interventions based on positive psychology constructs, such as mindfulness and gratitude, have garnered an increasing research base supporting their utility in alleviating psychological distress (e.g., depression, anxiety, and stress) and enhancing psychological health (Kahl, Winter, & Schweiger, 2012; Keng, Smoski, & Robins, 2011). Little research, however, has investigated how different aspects of mindfulness may relate to gratitude, or how the combined effects of both mindfulness and gratitude may protect against psychological distress. Purpose: The current study aimed to investigate the relationships between the five facets of mindfulness, dispositional gratitude, and psychological distress. Psychological distress was defined by the presence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, or stress. The study also sought to assess whether dispositional gratitude predicted psychological distress, beyond the variance accounted for by the five facets of mindfulness. Methodology: Six hundred and fifty-four participants were recruited for the study. Participation was restricted to Australian residents aged 18 years or older who had access to a computer and the internet. After multivariate outliers were deleted, 649 participants remained (510 females, 79%) with a mean age of 30.6 years (range = 17-82 years). Participants comprised undergraduate psychology students at the University of Newcastle (n = 226) and members of the general population (n = 423). Participants completed an online questionnaire, with 12 empirically supported scales, as part of a wider study. Completion time was approximately 45 minutes. For the present study, data from the following scales were analysed: the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al., 2006), the Gratitude Questionnaire–Six Item Form (GQ–6; McCullough et al., 2002), and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale–21 Item Form (DASS–21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). Results: The hypotheses were tested using correlational analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis (MRA). Correlational analyses indicated that: (1) dispositional mindfulness and dispositional gratitude were both related to psychological distress outcomes; and (2) there was a varied pattern of relationships between the five facets of mindfulness and dispositional gratitude. MRA revealed that, even when controlling for the five facets of mindfulness, dispositional gratitude was predictive of depression, anxiety, and stress, accounting for 7.1%, 0.7% and 1.6%, respectively, of the unique variance in each variable. MRA also showed that, when controlling for dispositional gratitude, the five facets of mindfulness differentially predicted psychological distress. Conclusions and Implications: The weak to moderate correlations between the five facets of mindfulness and dispositional gratitude indicate that dispositional gratitude—whilst linked to mindfulness—is a separate construct that is not wholly represented by measures of mindfulness. This suggests that dispositional gratitude should be examined independently in future research, and that gratitude practice has a place in clinical interventions in its own right. Moreover, dispositional gratitude was found to be a significant predictor of depression, anxiety, and stress in its own right. In fact, dispositional gratitude predicted more variance in levels of depression than any of the five facets of mindfulness. This suggests that gratitude-enhancing exercises, which are sometimes included in mindfulness interventions, may be especially beneficial for individuals with depression. Lastly, the five facets of mindfulness were not all equally predictive of psychological distress outcomes: describing did not predict psychological distress, and observing predicted an increase in symptoms of psychological distress. The latter finding suggests that observing might actually represent rumination, or possibly hypervigilance. The status of observing and describing as facets of mindfulness was, therefore, questioned. Future research was recommended to delineate the role of observing and describing, and to further examine how best to measure mindfulness and its components. Several limitations were identified. The cross-sectional design of the study meant that causal relationships between variables could not be inferred, and future research was recommended that would employ an experimental or longitudinal design. The considerable length of the questionnaire was noted to potentially over- or under-represent the prevalence of psychological distress. The measures solely assessed dispositional mindfulness and dispositional gratitude, and relied exclusively on self-report—however, all measures utilised were noted to have good reliability and validity. The study also covered a broad cross-section of the community, with a wide age range, thus increasing confidence that its findings may be generalised to the wider population. Following the current exploratory analysis of the relationships between the five facets of mindfulness, dispositional gratitude, and psychological distress, future studies should seek to further investigate and confirm these findings. Improved understanding of the different components that specifically constitute mindfulness will ultimately lead to the progressive refinement of existing mindfulness and gratitude-based interventions. This, in turn, will allow psychologists to provide efficacious, evidence-based treatments for individuals who present with anxiety and depression.
- Subject
- dispositional mindfulness; FFMQ; dispositional gratitude; depression; anxiety; stress
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1318084
- Identifier
- uon:23556
- Rights
- Copyright 2016 Madeline Sarah Collings Begg
- Language
- eng
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 995 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 429 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |