Mindfulness is Associated with Nursing Students’ Grit and Achievement Emotions
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Grit is defined as having perseverance and passion for long-term goals. It is challenging yourself despite your fears. It’s being resilient. It’s having the willingness to fail, fail again, and to fail better until you finally succeed.” – Shilpi Mahajan
Mindfulness practice has been shown to improve emotion regulation. Practitioners demonstrate the ability to fully sense and experience emotions but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. The ability of mindfulness training to improve emotion regulation is thought to be the basis for a wide variety of benefits that mindfulness provides to mental health and the treatment of mental illness especially depression and anxiety disorders.
Mindfulness can be divided into two different aspects. Meditation mindfulness emphasizes focusing on what is occurring right now without judgement. On the other hand, socio-cognitive mindfulness emphasizes openness to external stimuli allowing for flexible interactions with the environment. It would be expected that socio-cognitive mindfulness with its flexibility in interpreting external events in particular would underlie improvements in emotion regulation. Grit is perseverance for long-term goals which would also be expected to be related to emotions and mindfulness. But little is known regarding the relationships of mindfulness, grit, and emotions.
In today’s Research News article “Nursing Students’ Grit, Socio-Cognitive Mindfulness, and Achievement Emotions: Mediating Effects of Socio-Cognitive Mindfulness.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8909993/ ) Lee recruited nursing students and had them complete measures of socio-cognitive mindfulness, grit, and achievement emotions.
They found that the higher the levels of mindfulness the higher the levels of grit and positive emotions and the lower the levels of negative emotions. They also found that the higher the levels of grit the higher the levels of positive emotions and the lower the levels of negative emotions, Further the relationships between grit and emotions were mediated in part by mindfulness. Grit was positively related to positive emotions directly and indirectly by being associated with higher levels of mindfulness which was in turn also related to higher levels of positive emotions. Similarly, grit was negatively related to negative emotions directly and indirectly by being associated with higher levels of mindfulness which was in turn also related to lower levels of negative emotions.
These findings are correlative and as such causation cannot be determined. Nevertheless, they help to clarify the relationships of perseverance for long-term goals with nursing students’ emotions. Grit is associated with emotional well-being directly and indirectly through mindfulness.
“Follow-through (or Grit) is one of the greatest predictors of college success.” – Sarah Ritter
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Twitter @MindfulResearch
Study Summary
Lee M. (2022). Nursing Students’ Grit, Socio-Cognitive Mindfulness, and Achievement Emotions: Mediating Effects of Socio-Cognitive Mindfulness. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(5), 3032. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19053032
Abstract
Background: Recognizing the under-examined socio-cognitive mindfulness and achievement emotions in nursing, this study aimed to examine the relationships between grit, socio-cognitive mindfulness, and achievement emotions among nursing students, as well as the mediating effects of socio-cognitive mindfulness. Methods: This study utilized a cross-sectional design. A total of 220 nursing students in Korea completed the questionnaire measuring the levels of grit, socio-cognitive mindfulness, and achievement emotions. To analyze data, structural equation modeling and path analysis were performed. Results: Grit was positively related to socio-cognitive mindfulness and positive achievement emotions but negatively related to negative emotions. Socio-cognitive mindfulness was positively related to positive emotions but negatively related to negative emotions. In addition, the mediating effects of socio-cognitive mindfulness were found in the association between grit and achievement emotions in nursing students. Conclusions: Grittier students tend to have higher socio-cognitive mindfulness and positive emotions but lower negative emotions in learning environments. Mediating effects highlight the benefits of socio-cognitive mindfulness in the context of nursing education, providing the basis for developing practical mindfulness programs to cultivate nursing students’ socio-cognitive mindfulness.