Mediating Effect of Mindfulness, Self-Esteem and Psychological Resilience in the Relation between Childhood Maltreatment and Life Satisfaction

Childhood maltreatment, as a typical early adverse environment, is known to have a negative impact on one's life satisfaction. Mindfulness, on the other hand, may serve as a protective factor. This study explored the mediating role of mindfulness and its related variables-positive thoughts, psychological resilience and self-esteem. In order to testify the mechanism, we administered Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) to a non-clinical sample of Chinese university students (N = 1021). The results indicated that positive thoughts did not mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and life satisfaction, but self-esteem (/3 = -0.194, 95% CI = [-0.090, -0.040]) and psychological resilience (/3 = -0.063, 95% CI = [-0.059, -0.020]) mediated the relationship, as well as the "mindfulness-selfesteem" (/3 = -0.061, 95% CI = [-0.287, -0.126]) and "mindfulness-psychological resilience" (/3 = -0.035, 95% CI = [-0.115, -0.034]). The results of this study were helpful to understand the relationship between childhood maltreatment and life satisfaction and provided a theoretical basis for the development of mindfulness intervention programs from the perspective of positive psychology.