Mindfulness And Expectancies: An Investigation of College Student Well-Being

In a study testing whether the relationship between mindful behaviors and well-being is moderated by one's expectation of beneficial outcomes, college undergraduates were measured on self-reported measures of anxiety, depression, and stress along with physiological variables of attention. Those in the informed condition were provided psychoeducation on mindful behaviors, their link to beneficial health outcomes, and their attainment of prescribed, daily mindfulness thresholds. Subjects in the control group were not provided this information. It was hypothesized that participants randomly assigned to the informed condition will demonstrate improvements in mindfulness, well-being (e.g., anxiety, depression, stress), and attention, whereas those in the control condition will not show changes over the course of the same time period. Mixed-model MANOVA analysis found insignificant findings for the main effect of condition and the interaction effect, indicating that the groups did not differ on well-being or cognitive outcome variables over time.