Mechanisms of mindfulness: Rumination and self-compassion

Why do more mindful individuals tend to be less depressed? We hypothesized (1) that mindfulness is associated with depressive symptoms both via the path of lower levels of rumination and higher levels of self-compassion and (2) that the path via self-compassion would explain variance beyond that which could be explained by rumination. Undergraduate students (N=277) completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Rumination subscale of the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire, the Self-Compassion Scale, and the depression subscale of the symptom checklist-90 revised (SCL-90-R-dep). Results showed that mindfulness was associated with depressive symptoms both via the pathway of lower levels of rumination and via the pathway of higher levels of self-compassion. Both pathways were found to predict unique variance in depressive symptoms beyond that which could be explained by the other pathway. This suggests that one needs to consider the influence of mindfulness on both rumination and on self-compassion in order to fully understand why mindful individuals tend to be less depressed.