Embodied Pathways from Mindful Dance Training to Psychological Resilience in Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study of Interoceptive Awareness, Self-Compassion, and Emotion Regulation

Abstract

Abstract Pathway studies of adolescent psychological resilience have predominantly focused on cognitive routes, leaving the role of interoceptive processes largely unexplored. Grounded in embodied cognition theory, this study examined whether mindful dance training promotes adolescent psychological resilience through multiple mediation pathways involving interoceptive awareness, self-compassion, and emotion regulation. A total of 647 adolescents (M age = 14.23, 56.7% female) from 14 classes across four secondary schools were assigned to a 16-week mindful dance training program or a regular dance training program, with core variables measured at four time points over 24 weeks. A between-group longitudinal mediation model revealed that the mindful dance group showed greater gains in psychological resilience, conveyed primarily through indirect pathways (total indirect effect = .0920, 95% CI [.0575, .1302]; direct effect β = .08, p = .118). Five of seven specific indirect pathways were significant, and self-compassion appeared in all five, with the single-mediator pathway through self-compassion yielding the largest point estimate (.0204, 22.2% of the total indirect effect). A supplementary within-group analysis produced a convergent pattern. Exploratory moderation analysis suggested that implementation fidelity moderated the engagement quality to interoceptive awareness path (β = .14, p = .018). These findings indicate that interoceptive awareness serves as a temporal starting point in the embodied pathway from mindful dance training to adolescent resilience, and that self-compassion functions as the most central mediator, contributing to resilience both through emotion regulation and independently of it.