The moderating and mediating roles of self-acceptance and tolerance to others in the relationship between mindfulness and subjective well-being

Abstract

This study explored the moderating and mediating influences of self-acceptance and tolerance to others in the relationship between mindfulness and subjective well-being. In total, 301 (130 males) university students completed the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, Index of Well-being, Self-acceptance Questionnaire, and Tolerance Scale. The results showed that the positive link between mindfulness and subjective well-being was significantly mediated by self-acceptance only. Tolerance played a moderating role. The implications of the results for relevant research and mindfulness training were discussed.

Keywords

mediating effect mindfulness moderating effect self-acceptance subjective well-being tolerance

Introduction

Recent literature has clearly shown that there is a positive relationship between mindfulness and subjective well-being (SWB) (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Collard et al., 2008; Schutte and Malouff, 2011). However, the mechanism of the relationship between mindfulness and SWB is still unclear and under-explored. Thus, this study explored the mechanism for the positive link between mindfulness and SWB; in particular, it investigated the roles of self-acceptance and tolerance to others in this positive link. Before testing the hypothesis, the relevant literature was presented.

One of the most cited definitions of mindfulness in the psychological context was conceptualized by Kabat-Zinn who defined mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Since then, other researchers expanded the definition, thus making the concept of mindfulness more dynamic and complex (Baer et al., 2006; Leary and Tate, 2007; Shapiro et al., 2006).

Mindfulness has a very long history. It came from Buddhism in the East. The ancient monks used mindfulness as a technique to practice awareness of the here-and-now. Mindfulness meditation started to became part of medicine and psychology when Kabat-Zinn developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). MBSR was an 8-week training program to reduce the psychological stress of people who had cancer, chronic pain, psoriasis, or other diseases (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). From then on, some other psychological therapies such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) (Teasdale et al., 2000) began to use mindfulness meditation to treat different psychological problems. Mindfulness is now widely used in the general population not only to treat psychological problems but also to enhance quality of life and well-being (Chen et al., 2011).

There have been suggestion that mindfulness is not only a technique or attentional training but also a kind of trait or human capacity involving a sensitive awareness of the present (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Shapiro et al., 2011) and a sense of wakefulness in one’s life (Shapiro et al., 2006). Though trait mindfulness can be cultivated by training and practice (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Kabat-Zinn, 2003), it can also not be specific to meditative contexts. In this study, Kabat-Zinn’s (1990) definition of mindfulness was followed.

SWB is derived from the hedonic view of well-being (Richard and Edward, 2001). The hedonic view maintains that pursuing feelings of pleasure is the ultimate goal of life and that SWB reflects the degree of pleasure and the satisfaction of an individual’s life (Falikowski, 2004). The literature seems to suggest that mindfulness practice can enhance participants’ SWB by increasing positive affect and decreasing negative affect (Anderson et al., 2007; Collard et al., 2008; Kieviet-Stijnen et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2013; Shapiro et al., 2011). Researchers found that an 8-week mindfulness meditation can increase participants’ left-sided anterior activation, which is considered to be correlated with positive affect (Davidson et al., 2003). Meanwhile, other researchers also found that mindfulness training can decrease activation in the amygdala (Desbordes et al., 2012) which is considered to be correlated with negative affect (Schaefer et al., 2002). In general, it is now accepted that mindfulness has a positive relationship with SWB (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Collard et al., 2008).

While the relationship between mindfulness and SWB is known, the mechanism for this positive link is under-explored. Schutte and Malouff (2011) found that emotional intelligence mediates the relationship between trait mindfulness and SWB. However, this is only one aspect of emotion regulation that might explain the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. This study aimed to find the mechanism of the positive link between mindfulness and SWB by investigating the role of self-acceptance and tolerance.

Self-acceptance is an important sign of mental health (Carson and Langer, 2006). In Ryff and Singer’s (1996) opinion, self-acceptance involves a nonjudgmental regard to both the good and bad aspects of the self in the past, present, and future. One aspect of self-acceptance is the ability and willingness to let others know one’s true self (Carson and Langer, 2006). Another important aspect of it is an appropriate self-evaluation (Carson and Langer, 2006). Tolerance means the capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others (Dahlstrom et al., 1975). In the view of Dahlstrom et al. (1975), tolerance has four aspects including honesty and good faith, treating people fairly and compassionately, caring for others, and trusting in fairness and justice. It is the premise of people getting on well with each other and dealing with conflict in reality. It thus can be suggested that self-acceptance and tolerance to others reflect a person’s attitude to self and to others. Self-acceptance is an attitude pointed to one’s own internal self, and tolerance is an attitude pointed to others and external. It may be that self-acceptance is “a tolerance to ourselves” while tolerance is “an acceptance of others.”

Carson and Langer (2006) suggested that self-acceptance can be enhanced by mindfulness practice. Thompson and Waltz (2008) showed that mindfulness has a positive relationship with self-acceptance and they also thought that mindfulness practice could be used as a good way to cultivate self-acceptance and self-esteem. In Jimenez et al.’s (2010) research, they found that self-acceptance is the strongest mediator of mindfulness and depressive symptoms. All the studies supported a positive link between mindfulness and self-acceptance.

Makino and Tagami (1998) found that self-acceptance was positively related to SWB. This finding was supported by several researchers (Hoffman, 2006; Kasser and Ryan, 1993, 1996; Ryff, 1989; Sanjuán, 2011) who also found a positive relationship between self-acceptance and SWB. Thus, the evidence suggests that there is a positive correlation between self-acceptance and SWB.

The above findings suggested that self-acceptance could correlate positively with mindfulness and SWB. Previous studies showed that self-acceptance acted as a mediator in the relationship between mindfulness and other variables (Jimenez et al., 2010). So it is probable that self-acceptance can also act as a mediator in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. High levels of mindfulness are correlated with more self-acceptance. When a person nonjudgmentally accepts himself or herself instead of blaming or criticizing his or her thoughts, feelings, and emotions, it is easier to have high levels of SWB.

The conception of “tolerance” here is not “pain tolerance” or “distress tolerance” (though they can also be enhanced by mindfulness practice) (Kingston et al., 2007; Linehan, 1993), but tolerance to others’ opinions and beliefs. In Eastern culture, tolerance is emphasized both in mindfulness practice and in interaction with others. Tolerance, as one part of the “sad-paramita” (Mahayana righteous Chapter) (Ono, 1970), is an important quality of Buddhism (Khantipalo, 1964) which is referred to by other people and even other religions (Bapat, 1956). As mindfulness originated in Buddhism, and while it has been called the “heart” of Buddhist meditation (Kabat-Zinn, 2003), mindfulness has the potential to be correlated with tolerance. Researchers also found mindfulness was positively correlated with forgiveness of others (Webb et al., 2013). In addition, 8 weeks of mindfulness training can improve an individual’s forgiveness of others (Oman et al., 2008), which is a similar concept to tolerance. It has also been suggested that a person with high levels of mindfulness will have good attentional skills and emotional regulation skills (Chambers et al., 2009), which can help that person pay attention to the positive aspects of interaction with others, leading to high levels of tolerance.

The relationship between tolerance and SWB still needs to be explored. We suggest that tolerance makes a person get on well with others, leading to a harmonious life and positive emotions, which can enhance a person’s SWB. Only a few studies have investigated this link. For example, Lopes et al. (2011) found that tolerance has a very low but significant positive relationship with SWB (r = 0.11, p = 0.05). Lopes et al. (2011) suggested that the relationship between tolerance and SWB may be more complicated than a simple positive correlation.

Since tolerance has the potential to be correlated with mindfulness and SWB, it is probable that tolerance acts as a mediator between mindfulness and SWB, that is, a person with high levels of mindfulness will have high tolerance. A person with high tolerance will have good emotional regulation strategies and skills in social communication, enabling the individual to get on well with others and enjoy good social interactions, leading to high levels of SWB.

However, tolerance can also act as a moderator between mindfulness and SWB. In Shapiro et al.’s (2011) opinion, the study of moderators can be helpful to find out which group can expect to gain greater benefit from mindfulness. It is possible that if a person has high tolerance, he or she will have good emotion regulation skills and pay attention to the positive aspects of interaction with others, leading to high levels of SWB from social communication and friendship. Since a person with high tolerance may already have relatively high levels of SWB, leading to ceiling effects (Shapiro et al., 2011), this probably means the person benefits less from mindfulness, indicating that for the person with high tolerance, there may be a weak correlation between mindfulness and SWB. However, if a person has low tolerance, he or she may not get on well with someone who has different opinions. The person with low tolerance may have trouble with social communications and feel unhappy, so he or she has more psychological benefit to gain from mindfulness, indicating that for the person with low tolerance, there may be a strong correlation between mindfulness and SWB.

This study

Our hypotheses were as follows: (1) self-acceptance acts as a mediator in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB and (2) tolerance acts as both a mediator and a moderator in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the mediating effect of self-acceptance and the mediating and moderating role of tolerance in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB.

Method

Ethical point

The ethical approval of this study was obtained from the Academic Committee of the Department of Psychology, College of Education, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China. We emailed an informed consent form to every participant. Participants who consented were invited to join our research. This consent procedure was approved by the Academic Committee of the Department of Psychology, College of Education, Capital Normal University.

Participants

In total, 301 university students (130 males) participated. The mean age was 22 years (from 18 to 34 years, standard deviation (SD) = 2.54 years). Of these, 72 percent (N = 216) were undergraduate students and 28 percent (N = 85) were graduate students. All participants reported no history of mental illness and/or psychotropic medication experience.

Procedure

The study was advertised by posting ads widely at several universities in Beijing. Students interested in this study were asked to contact the experimenter and to determine a suitable time and place for this study. The survey was completed on paper in a quiet classroom. The scale was checked to make sure there were no missing items and a token sum of five Chinese Yuan was given to each participant.

Measures

Mindfulness

Mindfulness levels were assessed using the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al., 2006). The FFMQ is a five-factor, 39-item measure designed to assess mindfulness across multiple facets, including observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging of inner experience, and non-reactivity to inner experience. In this study, the Chinese version of FFMQ was revised and validated by Deng et al. (2011).

SWB

We measured SWB according to the Index of Well-being (IWB) which can assess the degree of well-being a person is experiencing. It contains two subscales which are the index of general affect (weight of 1) and the life satisfaction (weight of 1.1), indicating that the total score is calculated by index of general affect + life satisfaction × 1.1 (Campbell et al., 1976). Higher scores indicate higher SWB. In this study, we used the total score of this scale.

Self-acceptance

We assessed self-acceptance with the Self-acceptance Questionnaire (SAQ). This 16-item questionnaire has two factors which are self-acceptance and self-evaluation (Cong and Gao, 1999). Higher scores indicate higher self-acceptance. The total score of SAQ was used in this study.

Tolerance

We measured tolerance according to Tolerance Scale (TO). The TO is a 30-item scale to assess the degree of tolerance to others’ beliefs and values (Dahlstrom et al., 1975). This scale contains four aspects: honesty and good faith, treating people fairly and compassionately, caring for others, and trusting in fairness and justice. A person with a high score indicates that they have a high degree of tolerance.

Preliminary data screening and data analysis

Prior to analyses, the data were examined for inaccurate data entry, missing values, and the assumptions of multivariate analysis. Minor and non-systematic missing data were found for approximately less than 4 percent of individuals and these were substituted by sample means. No outliers were found in the data. Collinear relationships between study variables were assessed using multiple regression analysis and tolerance values for all variables were above 0.10, indicating no violation of the assumption. Normality assumption was checked and skewness was found in FFMQ, SAQ, TO, and IWB. Johnson transformation was used for the scales.

Means, SDs, range, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, and correlations of the four scales used were computed by SPSS 19.0 (see section “Results”). Linear regression models were used to test the mediating and moderating effects of self-acceptance and tolerance. Preacher and Hayes’s (2004) approach was used to test for mediation. The approach to test moderating effects followed the steps outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986) using hierarchical regression. Edwards and Lambert’s (2007) approach are used to combine the moderating and mediating effects. The continuous predictor and moderator were standardized using a z-transformation to minimize multi-collinearity with the interaction terms of the model. In the analysis of a moderating effect, the predictor (mindfulness) and moderator (self-acceptance, tolerance) were entered into the regression in the first step. The predictor × moderator (self-acceptance × mindfulness, tolerance × mindfulness) was entered in the second step.

Results

Descriptive statistics and internal consistency

Table 1 shows the mean, SD, range, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for mindfulness, SWB, self-acceptance, and tolerance. All four scales showed good reliability. Table 1 also presents the correlations for all these variables which showed significant positive correlations between mindfulness, SWB, self-acceptance, and tolerance.

Table 1.

Means, SD, range, alpha coefficient measurement, and simple correlations for all variables.

Variable	1	2	3	4
1. FFMQ	1
2. IWB	0.47***	1
3. SAQ	0.59***	0.45***	1
4. TO	0.34***	0.24***	0.38***	1
Mean	122.47	10.44	41.38	18.25
SD	12.72	1.97	6.10	4.97
Range	90.00–168.00	2.10–14.33	22.00–64.00	2.00–28.00
α	0.77	0.87	0.83	0.77

SD: standard deviation; FFMQ: Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; IWB: Index of Well-being; SAQ: Self-acceptance Questionnaire; TO: Tolerance Scale.

***

p < 0.001.

Common method bias

We adopted Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003) by taking all variables in this study (mindfulness, self-acceptance, tolerance, age, and gender) into an exploratory factor analysis and examining the unrotated factor solution to estimate the number of factors that were necessary to account for the variance in the variables. We found that there were three factors and that no factor could account for the majority of the covariance among the measures. Thus, we concluded that there were no common method biases in the study.

Mediating effects of self-acceptance and tolerance to others

Mindfulness significantly predicted self-acceptance (β = 0.59, R² = 0.35, p < 0.001) and SWB (β = 0.47, R² = 0.22, p < 0.001). When mindfulness and self-acceptance were considered together, mindfulness’ regression weight on SWB was reduced but still remained significant (β = 0.31, R² = 0.26, p < 0.001). Bootstrapping the indirect pathways mediated by self-acceptance in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB was done using 2000 bootstrap samples (Preacher and Hayes, 2004). The results showed that the true indirect effect was estimated to lie between 0.0016 and 0.0444 with 95 percent confidence interval (CI). Because 0 is not in the 95 percent CI, we can thus conclude that the indirect effect is significant. Then we used the tolerance as the proposed mediator. Mindfulness significantly predicted tolerance (β = 0.34, R² = 0.11, p < 0.001) and SWB (β = 0.47, R² = 0.22, p < 0.001). When mindfulness and tolerance were considered together, mindfulness’ regression weight on SWB was not reduced and remained significant (β = 0.44, R² = 0.22, p < 0.001). The results showed that the true indirect effect was estimated to lie between −0.0003 and 0.0139 with 95 percent CI. Because 0 is in the 95 percent CI, we can thus conclude that the indirect effect of tolerance is not significant.

Moderating effects of tolerance

The moderating effect results of tolerance are displayed in Table 2. When mindfulness and tolerance were entered into the regression in the first step, mindfulness accounted for a significant amount of dependent variance (SWB) (ΔR² = 0.23, p < 0.001). After tolerance × mindfulness entered the regression in the second step, tolerance × mindfulness accounted for a significant increase in SWB (ΔR² = 0.02, p = 0.011), indicating that tolerance had a moderating effect on the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. The effect was explored in simple slopes (see Figure 1).We tested slopes at −1 and 1 SD values of moderator (tolerance) to test the differences in persons with low tolerance and high tolerance. The slopes were significant for persons with low tolerance (b = 0.59, t = 5.09, p < 0.001). But for persons with high tolerance, the significance and regression coefficient became smaller (b = 0.30, t = 2.06, p = 0.045). The results indicated that the relationship between mindfulness and SWB differed between persons with high and low tolerance. To be specific, for persons with low tolerance, mindfulness was positively correlated to SWB significantly. However, for persons with high tolerance, there was a less significant relationship between mindfulness and SWB.

Table 2.

Analyses of the moderating effect of tolerance on relationship between mindfulness and SWB.

	SWB	ΔR²
	β
Step 1		0.04**
Gender	−0.20***
Age	0.03
Step 2		0.20***
Mindfulness	0.43***
Tolerance	0.09
Step 3		0.02*
Mindfulness × Tolerance	−0.13*

SWB: subjective well-being.

p < 0.05, **p<0.01, ***p < 0.001.

Figure 1.

Simple slopes’ graph of interaction effect: mindfulness × tolerance.

Combining the mediating effect of self-acceptance and moderating effects of tolerance

Using the method of Edwards and Lambert (2007), we combined the mediating effect of self-acceptance and moderating effect of tolerance. Using the total effect moderation model (Figure 2), two equations were explored as follows

\begin{array}{l} Self-acceptance = a_{05} + a_{X 5} mindfulness \\ + a_{Z 5} tolerance \\ + a_{X Z 5} mindfulness \\ \times tolerance + e_{M 5} \end{array}

\begin{array}{l} SWB = b_{020} + b_{X 20} mindfulness \\ + b_{M 20} self-acceptance \\ + b_{Z 20} tolerance \\ + b_{X Z 20} mindfulness \times tolerance \\ + b_{M Z 20} self-acceptance \times tolerance + e_{r 20} \end{array}

Figure 2.

The total effect moderation model in this study.

Regression was used to estimate coefficients for the full sample, while the constrained nonlinear regression (CNLR) module was used to estimate coefficients from 1000 bootstrap samples (Edwards and Lambert, 2007). Table 3 shows the regression coefficients for the full sample. Table 4 shows the simple effects. From Table 4, we can see that tolerance only moderated the total effect of the model (−0.235, p < 0.05).

Table 3.

Estimates of the coefficients in the equations of the total effect moderation mode.

Moderator	a₀₅	a_X5	a_Z5	a_XZ5	b₀₂₀	b_X20	b_M20	b_Z20	b_XZ20	b_MZ20
Tolerance	−0.007	0.526***	0.203***	0.021	0.035	0.276***	0.257***	0.031	−0.168***	0.087

N = 301.

***

p < 0.001.

Table 4.

Analysis of simple effects.

Moderator variable	Stage		Effect		Total
Moderator variable	First	Second	Direct	Indirect	Total
Low tolerance	0.504**	0.166	0.452	0.083	0.536**
High tolerance	0.546**	0.340**	0.116	0.186**	0.301**
Differences	0.042	0.174	−0.337	0.102	−0.235*

Z = −1.050 and 0.954 for low and high tolerance, respectively (i.e. 1 SD above and below the mean of the centered centrality variable). Tests of differences for the indirect and total effects were based on bias-corrected confidence intervals derived from bootstrap estimates.

p < 0.05, **p < 0.001.

In summary, it was found that self-acceptance but not tolerance to others mediated the positive relationship between mindfulness and SWB. Tolerance moderated the positive relationship of mindfulness and SWB.

Discussion

This study found that higher levels of mindfulness were significantly associated with more self-acceptance and higher levels of SWB. These results were partly in accordance with previous researches reporting relationships between these variables (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Carson and Langer, 2006; Collard et al., 2008; Jimenez et al., 2010; Ryff, 1989; Thompson and Waltz, 2008). This study also found that more self-acceptance was associated with higher levels of SWB and more tolerance to others. These results were consistent with previous research (Hoffman, 2006; Kasser and Ryan, 1993, 1996; Makino and Tagami, 1998; Negy and Winton, 2008; Ryff, 1989; Sanjuán, 2011). The positive correlation between tolerance and SWB also was in line with previous research (Lopes et al., 2011). However, these results also revealed new findings. We found mindfulness is positively correlated with tolerance. A reason could be that mindfulness helps a person to pay attention to what happens in the present. In this particular way of attention, people can be nonjudgmental of other’s opinions and words, thus cultivating the ability of tolerance.

This study attempted to clarify how self-acceptance and tolerance play roles in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. It was the first study from the perspective of self-acceptance and tolerance to others. Our findings clearly demonstrated that self-acceptance and tolerance played differential roles in influencing the positive link between mindfulness and SWB, that is, self-acceptance mediated the positive relationship of mindfulness and SWB, while tolerance moderated but not mediated this mindfulness–SWB relationship.

It is interesting to note that self-acceptance acted as a mediator of the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. This showed that high self-acceptance is a critical factor in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. It is partly in line with a previous study which also indicated a mediating effect of self-acceptance and emotion (Jimenez et al., 2010).

The finding that tolerance acted as a moderator in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB is new and interesting. Figure 1 shows that for individuals with low tolerance, mindfulness is significantly, positively correlated to SWB. However, for individuals with high tolerance, there is a less significant relationship between mindfulness and SWB. One probable explanation is that higher levels of mindfulness are helpful for individuals with low tolerance in solving their emotional problems and in helping to make them feel happier. However, for individuals with high tolerance, they are already getting on well with others. No matter whether their mindfulness levels are high or low, they already have positive emotions and high life satisfaction. So the link between mindfulness and SWB is less for them than for individuals with low tolerance. The results also showed that tolerance does not act as a mediator in the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. A possible reason is that the correlation between tolerance and SWB is relatively low (r = 0.24). This finding is in line with that of a previous study (Lopes et al., 2011).

The current findings suggest some potential applications. The results from this study showed that self-acceptance and tolerance to others play an important role in the positive link between mindfulness and SWB. Self-acceptance and tolerance to others play different roles in this link. Our findings showed that paying attention to improve our ability of self-acceptance is a more productive way to increase SWB rather than training in mindfulness only. However, it is a different story about tolerance. For mindfulness practitioners with low tolerance, improving their levels of mindfulness can lead to enhanced SWB, which means feeling happier and more satisfied with life. However, for mindfulness practitioners with high tolerance, improving their levels of mindfulness can no longer lead to higher levels of SWB. Thus, it appears that mindfulness practice is more suitable for individuals with low tolerance to enhance their SWB. For mindfulness practitioners with high tolerance, mindfulness practice may not be that useful for enhancing SWB. In the application of mindfulness training to improve SWB, mindfulness trainers should also keep in mind that acceptance of ourselves and tolerance to others play different roles in the correlation between mindfulness and SWB.

It should be noted that this study had some limitations. First, the measurements in this study were all self-reported questionnaires and scales. Participants’ retrospective reports may not reflect the true situation. Second, the participants were all college students, thus it was unclear how these findings could be generalized to older groups or to non-college community groups. Third, from this cross-sectional study, it is impossible to induce causal relationships, thus future studies need to use prospective methodology with larger samples.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Shan Lu and Fenglin Liao for their invaluable assistance in the statistical analysis for this research study. T.P.S.O. is now an Emeritus Professor of the University of Queensland and is also a Visiting Professor of Psychology at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, P.R. China, and at James Cook University, Singapore.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Project No. 31271114) and by the Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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