The Mediating Role of Mindfulness in Attentional, Emotional, and Behavioral Self-Regulation During Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Abstract

(1) Background: Self-regulation of attention, emotions, and behavior constitutes a core set of skills essential for positive mental health in adolescence and adulthood. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have shown positive effects on these skills in early developmental stages. Yet it remains unclear whether dispositional mindfulness mediates these effects. This study examined whether dispositional mindfulness mediates the effects of attention and emotion-focused MBIs on attentional, emotional, and behavioral self-regulation. (2) Method: An experimental study was conducted with three conditions: (a) MBI focused on emotion regulation, (b) MBI focused on attentional regulation, and (c) control group. The sample consisted of boys and girls aged 8 to 12 years (n = 70, Mage = 9.60, SD = 1.01), randomly assigned to the three experimental conditions. Group differences in emotional, behavioral, and attentional regulation were analyzed, with mindfulness as a mediating variable. The mediation analysis was conducted using linear regressions and a nonparametric bootstrap technique with 5000 samples. Age and gender were included as control variables in all models. (3) Results: Both programs produced significant improvements in all three dimensions of self-regulation. However, mindfulness showed a mediating effect only on emotional self-regulation, not on attention and was inconclusive on behavioral self-regulation. (4) Conclusions: Mindfulness mediates emotional but not attentional self-regulation. The evidence for the mediating role of mindfulness in behavioral regulation was inconclusive. Incorporating mindfulness in educational settings could strengthen emotional self-regulation skills, thereby promoting mental health; however, further studies are needed.