To Turn Inward or Outward? Examining the Reciprocal Relationships Between Mindfulness, Interpersonal Emotion Regulation, and Aggression Over Time.
Erika Blair, David Chester
Research Square July 4, 2025 preprint DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6985856/v1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Longitudinal study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 469 |
| Population | Undergraduates at a Minority Serving Institution |
| Duration | Three waves approximately 20 days apart |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Mindfulness self-awareness Introspection Inward focus Coping strategies Self-regulation Interpersonal emotion regulation Help-seeking Reliance on others Aggression hostile behavior Violent tendencies Conflict |
| Key findings | Between-participants, more mindful individuals engaged in less interpersonal emotion regulation, but within-participants, being more mindful than usual predicted increased subsequent interpersonal emotion regulation. |
Abstract
People frequently turn to others to help regulate their emotions in what is referred to as inter personal emotion regulation (IER). Mindfulness entails an intra personal strategy of turning inward to facilitate emotion regulation. Yet little research has examined the relationships between these distinct regulation strategies and their consequences for aggression. The current study aims to elucidate how dispositional tendencies towards mindfulness and IER interact to predict each other and aggression over time. To do so, a diverse sample of undergraduates ( N = 469) at a Minority Serving Institution completed a three-wave, longitudinal study with approximately 20 days between each wave. Against our predictions, between-participants estimates suggested that more mindful individuals engaged in less IER across time points. Paradoxically, within-participant analyses revealed that when participants were more mindful than usual, they subsequently engaged in more IER. IER and mindfulness did not consistently explain our measures of aggressive behavior. As both IER and mindfulness are effective regulatory approaches with salutary effects, the inverse relationship between the two raises important questions about the trade-offs between the costs and benefits associated with these approaches.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Undergraduate students | 2006 | Observational cohort | |
| Effectiveness of a meditation-based stress reduction program in the treatment of anxiety disorders Patients with generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder with or without agoraphobia | 1992 | Observational cohort | n = 22 |
| Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness Participants with extensive Insight meditation experience and matched controls | 2005 | Observational cohort | n = 20 |
| Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity Experienced meditators and matched meditation-naive controls | 2011 | Observational cohort | |
| Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice Long-term Buddhist practitioners and controls | 2004 | Observational cohort |
Citations in the library
Cites 7
- The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003
- Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Assessment January 27, 2006
- When less is more: mindfulness predicts adaptive affective responding to rejection via reduced prefrontal recruitment Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience May 24, 2018
- The Relationship Between Trait Mindfulness and Affective Symptoms: A Meta-analysis of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) Clinical Psychology Review November 11, 2019
- Dispositional Mindfulness and Psychological Health: a Systematic Review Mindfulness July 1, 2017
and 2 more in the library