“Mindfulset”—Harnessing or unleashing learning potential through mindfulness mindset.

Abstract

This research introduces the "Mindfulness Mindset Scale," a concise and reliable tool designed to measure beliefs about the malleability of mindfulness skills. Study 1 (N = 285) revealed a single-factor structure through exploratory factor analysis, further validated in Study 2 (N = 286) using confirmatory factor analysis. Studies 3a (N = 266) and 3b (N = 320) revealed associations between the Mindfulness Mindset Scale and other measures of mindset, trait mindfulness, and coping, showing reasonable convergent and divergent validity. Study 4 (N = 470) showed the predictive validity of the mindfulness mindset, being correlated with behavioral persistence, effort, resilience, challenge-seeking, and academic grades. Study 5 (N = 320) supported the academic correlates of malleable beliefs of mindfulness beyond the mental health factors from Study 3 in two countries. In Study 6 (N French = 613, N Hungarian = 524), we demonstrated that a well-established learning mindset intervention can lead to changes in mindfulness mindset in two national contexts. Finally, a brief mindfulness mindset intervention designed for Study 7 (N = 208) also led to changes in malleability beliefs about mindfulness skills. These behavioral results suggest that beliefs about mindfulness being malleable are a novel construct distinct from trait mindfulness. Such beliefs are related to adaptive psychological mechanisms relevant in educational contexts, considering students' coping, mastery behavior, and academic performance. Importantly, these beliefs can be modified by brief interventions. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThis research underscores how beliefs about the malleability of mindfulness can influence educational outcomes. A brief, valid, and reliable measure can assess these beliefs. Besides grade point average, this survey can also predict mastery behaviors like resilience, effort, perseverance, challenge-seeking, and academic grades. The study also found that these beliefs can be changed through psychologically wise interventions focused on learning and mindfulness. Rod D. Roscoe served as action editor. Gábor Orosz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5883-6861 Gábor Orosz was supported by the Northern French Strategic Dialogue (Phases 1 and 2), STaRS, and Chaire de Professeur Junior Grants. Special thanks to the Schmidt Foundation postdoc grant that made it possible to study the links between growth mindset and mindfulness at Stanford University. Ethics approval was provided by the Institutional Ethical Board of Eötvös Loránd University (2015/50, 2016/39). All participants provided written informed consent prior to participation in the study. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. The data and the analytics that support the findings of this study are available online: https://osf.io/ e6nrg/?view_only=c1d074f14d55485c924ab3896b811247.