Although mindfulness can be cultivated through meditation and behavioral skills training (see Keng, Smoski, & Robins, 2011, for a review), mindfulness has also been conceptualized as a trait-like or dispositional characteristic that varies naturally in the general population, even without mindfulness training (Brown & Ryan, 2003). It includes observation or awareness of internal and external experiences in a nonjudgmental, accepting, and open way. Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to what is taking place in the present moment (Kabat-Zinn, 1982). The general capacity for self control is associated with numerous forms of adaptive functioning, including academic achievement, self-esteem, interpersonal skills, satisfying relationships, secure attachment, and positive emotions and negatively associated with symptoms such as anxiety, depression, binge eating, and alcohol abuse (Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004). People who are high in dispositional self-control tend to be disciplined, reliable, and hardworking.

Results show that although self-control predicts significant variance in psychological health, mindfulness predicts incremental variance, suggesting that a mindful approach to ongoing experience can contribute to mental health in persons who are highly self-disciplined and hardworking.ĭispositional self control has been described as the ability to regulate or override one’s thoughts, emotions, and action tendencies in order to behave consistently with goals, requirements, rules, or standards, even when feeling a strong urge or inclination to do something else (Baumeister, Galliot, DeWall, & Oaten, 2006). In addition, mindfulness was a significant moderator of the relationship between self-control and psychological symptoms. Mindfulness was found to account for significant variance in psychological wellbeing and general distress after accounting for self-control.

As expected, both mindfulness and self-control were positively correlated with wellbeing and negatively correlated with general distress.

A large sample of undergraduate students ( N = 280) completed self-report measures of mindfulness, self control, psychological wellbeing, and general psychological distress (depression and anxiety, and stress). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether dispositional mindfulness (the tendency to be mindful in general daily life) accounts for variance in psychological symptoms and wellbeing after accounting for the influence of dispositional self-control (the tendency to be self-disciplined, reliable, hardworking, etc.).

Alternatives to selfcontrol