Year of Graduation

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Major

Psychology

Directing Professor

Dr. Bonnie Bowers

Abstract

In recent years, the practice of cultivating mindfulness, a nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, has made a resurgence in areas ranging anywhere from behavioral issues to work and academic productivity (Brown & Ryan, 2003a). The current study was focused on the relationships between mindfulness, achievement styles, stress, attention, and perfectionism at a single-sex, liberal arts institution. One hundred and five undergraduate, female students participated in this study. All participants were randomly assigned to either a mindfulness audio condition or a badminton audio condition as a control. Then, they were given measures relating to achievement goals, mindfulness capability, state mindfulness, mind-wandering, stress, attention, and perfectionism. There was a significant difference in state mindfulness levels between the two conditions after receiving the audio session. The mindfulness condition had significantly higher state mindfulness. When the data were separated into conditions, there was also a moderate, positive correlation between state mindfulness and mastery approach goals indicating a significant relationship. Additionally, with the entire data set, there was a weak, positive correlation between perfectionism and performance avoidance style. While there was a moderate, positive correlation between the perfectionism and performance avoidance style in just the mindfulness condition. It was shown that mindfulness training did change state mindfulness after the audio intervention, but had no significant effect on stress, attention, mind wandering, and perfectionism scores.

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