The structural relations of dispositional mindfulness, Zhongyong, resilience, and subjective well-being among Chinese high school students

Using structural equation modeling (SEM) approach, this study examined how dispositional mindfulness could impact participants’ subjective well-being through Zhongyong and resilience. The participants were 1099 Chinese high school students. They were invited to complete a survey measuring their mindfulness, Zhongyong, resilience, life satisfaction, and positive and negative affect. Using Mplus 8.3, data were analyzed as follows: a) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the validity of the measurement model; b) SEM was used to explore the causal relationships among Zhongyong, resilience, dispositional mindfulness, life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect; c) the bootstrapping bias-corrected confidence interval procedure was used to test the role of mediating variables between independent and dependent variables; and d) the model differences between male and female participants were compared. Dispositional mindfulness had a positive effect on Zhongyong; further it was a significant mediating variable between dispositional mindfulness and both life satisfaction and positive affect. However, the effect of Zhongyong on the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and negative affect was not significant. Furthermore, both direct and indirect effects were found between dispositional mindfulness and subjective well-being through Zhongyong and resilience. Finally, the influence of dispositional mindfulness on subjective well-being was higher among female students than male students. In contrast, there was no gender difference in the influence of Zhongyong on subjective well-being. Dispositional mindfulness could a) promote Chinese high school students’ subjective well-being; and b) positively predict Zhongyong, a mediator between dispositional mindfulness and resilience, and between dispositional mindfulness and subjective well-being.