The effect of attachment style on mindfulness: findings from a weekly diary study using latent growth modeling

Abstract

The current study aimed to explore whether attachment style could predict the fluctuation of weekly mindfulness. A weekly diary design was adopted across one baseline week and five follow-up weeks. Data from 622 Chinese college students were subjected to latent growth modeling. Results showed attachment anxiety negatively predicted the intercept of acting with awareness, present moment attention, and nonjudging while positively predicting the slope of acting with awareness. Attachment avoidance negatively predicted the intercept of acting with awareness and present moment attention and positively predicted the slope of acting with awareness. These suggest that attachment style may impact the fluctuation of weekly mindfulness. Furthermore, both attachment avoidance and anxiety impact the rate of change of acting with awareness across five weeks. These support the idea that compared to securely attached people, insecurely attached people’s attention may fluctuate more according to their stress level, shifting between external tasks, other people, or themselves.