The Relationship between Orienting Attention and Dispositional Mindfulness is Moderated by Alerting Attention

Abstract

Mindfulness is described as a process of bringing a certain quality of attention to moment-by-moment experience. Levels of attention functions have been suggested to predict individual differences in mindfulness. The present study examines how aspects of attention functions are associated with dispositional mindfulness. University students (N=74) completed the Attention Network Test (Fan et al., 2002) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al., 2006). The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed an interaction between orienting attention and alerting attention which predicted mindfulness. Simple slope analysis showed that higher orienting attention was associated with higher mindfulness when alerting attention was low-level. On the other hand, higher orienting attention was associated with lower mindfulness when alerting attention was high-level. These results indicate that attention functions are predictors of mindfulness.