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Law enforcement personnel (LEPs) experience occupational stressors that can result in poor health outcomes and have a negative impact on the communities they serve. Dispositional mindfulness, or receptive awareness and attention to present moment experience, has been shown to negatively predict perceived stress and to moderate the relationship between stressors and negative stress-related outcomes. The current study is an investigation of the moderating role of specific facets of dispositional mindfulness (i.e., nonreactivity, nonjudging, and acting with awareness) in the relationship between occupational stressors and perceived stress in a sample of LEPs. As hypothesized, nonreactivity significantly moderated the relationship between operational stressors and perceived stress, such that LEPs low in nonreactivity exhibited a significant relationship between stressors and perceived stress, whereas those high in nonreactivity did not. Nonjudging also moderated the relationship between organizational stressors and perceived stress; however, unexpectedly, LEPs high in nonjudging evidenced a significant relationship between stressors and perceived stress, whereas those low in nonjudging did not. Potential implications of these findings for LEP stress reduction interventions are discussed.
Recent research has begun to distinguish between various aspects of self-report measures of mindfulness, including the distinction between mindful process and outcome. Therefore, our primary goal in this study was to examine whether an increase in mindful outcome mediated the relationship between an increase in mindful process and improvements in mental and physical health and perceived stress among mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) participants. Consistent with expectations, we found that changes in mindful outcome partially mediated relationships between changes in mindful process and two outcomes: mental health and perceived stress (but not physical health). Moreover, as expected, in an alternate model, changes in mindful outcome did not facilitate changes in mindful process and improvements in any of the outcome variables. The implications and limitations of these findings, as well as recommendations for future research, are discussed.
Self-report measures of mindfulness have consistently demonstrated positive relationships with well-being and inverse relationships with depression symptoms. The goal of this study was to extend the existing literature to include a test of the incremental validity of the components of mindfulness (as measured by the four factors of the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills [KIMS]; Baer et al. Assessment, 11, 191–206, 2004) and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown and Ryan Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822–848, 2003) in the prediction of satisfaction with life (relative to self-esteem) and depression (relative to negative cognitions) among a sample of 365 college students. Results revealed only KIMS Observe accounted for a significant amount variance relative to self-esteem in the prediction of satisfaction with life, and in the prediction of depression symptoms, only KIMS Accept without Judgment accounted for a significant amount of variance relative to negative cognitions. These results are discussed in relation to the measurement of mindfulness and methods used to assess the validity of these scales.