RESEARCH ARTICLE
Self-compassion, Positive and Negative Affect and Social Avoidance among Adolescence: Mediating Role of Mindfulness
M.S. Sujamani1, Barani Kanth2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2023Volume: 19
E-location ID: e17450179268979
Publisher ID: e17450179268979
DOI: 10.2174/0117450179268979231114045116
Article History:
Received Date: 21/07/2023Revision Received Date: 02/10/2023
Acceptance Date: 10/10/2023
Electronic publication date: 26/12/2023
Collection year: 2023
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective:
Mindfulness is an attribute of consciousness to manage social fear avoidance and promote well-being. Social anxiety is a common psychological experience noted among the general population. Social anxiety develops during adolescence and is prevalent among college students. This study investigates the factors contributing to social anxiety - fear and avoidance of social situations of female first-year undergraduates.
Methods:
The study used a survey research design. A sample of 821 first-year female undergraduate students aged between 17 and 19. Data were collected using the Liebowitz Social anxiety scale, the Five-Facet mindfulness questionnaire, A short form of the Self-compassion scale, and the Positive and Negative affect scale.
Results:
Mindfulness weakens social fear and reduces the tendency to avoid social situations. Mindfulness effectively mediates the impact of self-compassion's positive affect and negative effects on social fear. Mindfulness and social fear jointly mediate the impact of self-compassion, positive affect, and negative affect on social avoidance.
Conclusion:
Mindfulness is the awareness and acceptance of the feelings, thoughts and sensations attached to self and its possible reciprocity with social surroundings to mitigate fear—self-compassion and positive emotional affect augment, and negative emotional affect attenuate mindfulness. Results analysis highlights the mediation of mindfulness on social anxiety, self-compassion, positive affect, and negative affect.
