Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

8-2022

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Degree Program

Clinical Psychology, PhD

Committee Chair

Salmon, Paul

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

DeCaro, Marci

Committee Member

DeCaro, Marci

Committee Member

Lewine, Richard

Committee Member

Mitchell, Amanda

Committee Member

Walter, Bernadette

Author's Keywords

perceived stress; sleep quality; college students; college-aged young adults; dispositional mindfulness; self-compassion

Abstract

Using a nonclinical sample of 108 undergraduates between the ages of 18 to 25 years old, this cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between dispositional mindfulness (as measured by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; Baer et al., 2006) and sleep quality (as measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; Buysse et al., 1989). Second, it evaluated the association between trait self-compassion (as measured by the Self-Compassion Scale; Neff, 2003b) and sleep quality. Third, it aimed to test for an interaction effect between dispositional mindfulness and trait self-compassion as buffers against the adverse effects of perceived stress on sleep quality. Results showed that there was a significant moderate and negative association between dispositional mindfulness and sleep quality (r = -.48, p < .01). Similarly, results showed that there was a significant moderate and negative association between trait self-compassion and sleep quality (r = -.38, p < .01). Taken together, these findings indicate that in this sample of college-aged young adults, higher levels of dispositional mindfulness and trait self-compassion respectively were associated with better sleep quality. This is consistent with previous research examining the associations between dispositional mindfulness and sleep quality (Howell et al., 2008; Lau et al., 2008; Murphy et al., 2012) as well as between trait self-compassion and sleep quality (Brown et al., 2021; Butz & Stalhberg, 2018; Hu et al., 2018). Therefore, the present study's findings add to the extant body of literature demonstrating associations between higher levels of dispositional mindfulness and trait self-compassion respectively with better sleep quality. Contrary to the study's Hypotheses 3a and 3b, the hypothesized three-way interaction among perceived stress, dispositional mindfulness, and trait self-compassion was not supported, given that moderated moderation analyses revealed no significant interaction among these three variables (b = -.001, t(100) = -.53, p = .60, 95% Confidence Interval: [-.006, .004], ΔR2 = .002, ΔF = .28). This indicates that in the current sample, the strength of the association between perceived stress and poor sleep quality did not vary based on participants' levels of dispositional mindfulness and trait self-compassion.

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