رابطه بین تمرکز حواس ضدموضعی، امنیت دلبستگی و تنظیم احساسات

Mindfulness may be conceptualised as a dispositional trait which differs across individuals. Previous research has independently identified both attachment security and emotion regulation abilities as correlates of dispositional attachment. We investigated the relationship between the three concepts in a sample of 192 participants who had previously had no mindfulness training. Participants completed the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Revised (ECR-R) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) online. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a 2-factor solution accounting for 52% of the variance across scores on these measures. The first factor accounted for 36% of the variance and loaded highly on emotion regulation and mindfulness subscales. The second factor accounted for 16% of the variance and loaded highly on emotion regulation, attachment and mindfulness subscales. We called the first factor ‘conscious awareness of emotional states’ and the second factor ‘metacognition of emotional states’. The results confirmed that both emotional regulation abilities and attachment security were related to dispositional mindfulness.

Mindfulness is conceptualised as a state of attentiveness to present events and experiences that is unmediated by discriminating cognition (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007). It involves paying sustained attention to ongoing sensory, cognitive and emotional experience, without judging or elaborating on that experience (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). Interest in mindfulness has grown from converging research which indicates that higher levels of mindfulness are positively correlated with various indices of mental well being (e.g., Brown et al., 2007, Falkenström, 2010 and Howell et al., 2010). Mindfulness levels can be increased through meditation or mindfulness-based training (Baer et al., 2008 and Falkenström, 2010), however individual differences in mindfulness levels have been noted in those with no prior experience (Baer et al., 2006, Brown et al., 2007, Cordon and Finney, 2008, Thompson and Waltz, 2007 and Walach et al., 2006). Brown et al. (2007) suggested therefore that mindfulness may be an inherent or dispositional trait. The current study set out to explore potential correlates of dispositional mindfulness in non-meditating individuals. As the regulatory benefits of mindfulness are increasingly recognised (Shapiro, Carlson, Astin, & Freedman, 2006), emotion regulation has been identified as a correlate of mindfulness. Gratz and Roemer (2004) define emotion regulation as the ability to monitor, accept and understand emotions and to continue with goal-directed behaviour when emotionally activated. Mindfulness training has been demonstrated to impact on emotion regulation at both the neural level (Goldin and Gross, 2010 and Modinos et al., 2010) and at the cognitive level (Jermann et al., 2009). Furthermore, in disorders of emotion, such as depression and anxiety disorder mindfulness-based interventions alleviate symptoms (Jermann et al., 2009 and Roemer et al., 2009). Early modulation of emotion is thought to evolve initially from a dyadic management of emotion between caregiver and infant (Schore, 2003) thus implicating the role of early interactions on later emotion regulation abilities. Siegel (2001) suggested that differences in maternal interaction style may play a mediating role in the simultaneous development of both emotion regulation and mindfulness as higher mindfulness in mothers could result in the mother attending more receptively to the infant’s needs and emotional states which would simultaneously promote secure attachment and mindfulness in the child. Attachment theory proposes that cognitive schemas of regulating behaviour during episodes of distress are learned through repeated interactions with caregivers in childhood (Bowlby, 1980). Attachment in adulthood can be construed as individual differences on two orthogonal dimensions: (a) the anxiety dimension and (b) the avoidance dimension (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998). Low scores on these scales denote attachment security. Attachment anxiety is associated with a hyperactivating regulation style which encompasses hypersensitivity to perceived threats to self and relationships and excessive rumination. Attachment avoidance, in contrast, is related to an underactivating style, whereby the individual defensively inhibits emotions through denial or distortion (Cassidy, 1994). Secure attachment has been shown to positively relate to several indices of emotion regulation capacity, such as lower stress reactivity, lower physiological reactivity to ego-threatening stimuli and behavioural self-regulation (Diamond et al., 2006 and Powers et al., 2006). Conversely, insecure attachment correlates positively with higher levels of depression, anxiety and somatic symptoms (e.g., Shaver, Lavy, Saron, & Mikulincer, 2007) and disordered personality traits (Tiliopoulos & Goodall, 2009). Furthermore, several studies have demonstrated an association between attachment and mindfulness (Cordon & Finney, 2008); in particular, low levels of attachment anxiety have been associated with higher levels of mindfulness (Walsh, Balint, Smolira, Fredericksen, & Madsen, 2009). It should be noted, however, that studies based on participants who have had meditating experience, or where their meditation experience is unknown, are potentially confounded by the fact that increasing levels of mindfulness could simultaneously increase attachment security (Shaver et al., 2007). It is important, therefore when investigating the role of attachment in individual differences in dispositional mindfulness to focus on non-meditating populations. The majority of studies of self regulation focus on emotion regulation. Attachment, although linked to emotion regulation, comprises elements also of self-regulation in terms of interpersonal relationships and concepts and may therefore be thought of as a broader concept. There are, therefore, good theoretical reasons for thinking that attachment and emotion regulation may independently be related to dispositional mindfulness, however to our knowledge there is no research which investigates the underlying relationship between all three concepts. In the current study we were interested in how specific aspects of emotion regulation and attachment might be related to individual differences in particular aspects of dispositional mindfulness. Bearing this in mind, we chose to conduct exploratory factor analysis using measures of emotion regulation, mindfulness and attachment.

The present study aimed to examine the relationship between adult attachment style, emotion regulation and levels of mindfulness as a naturally occurring phenomenon in individuals who had received no training in mindful meditation. The results concord with the suggestion of Brown et al. (2007), that emotion regulation capacities have a greater role to play in dispositional mindfulness than attachment style. However, given the potential common antecedents of emotion regulation and attachment, investigation of the concept of mindfulness per se warrants research on younger populations.