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Greater autonomous motivation for study and basic psychological need satisfaction by being presently aware and ‘letting go’: An exploration of mindful attention and nonattachment

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Abstract

Mindful attention appears to facilitate greater satisfaction of basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness). Recent findings suggest that nonattachment may arise from mindfulness, with nonattachment being found to mediate relationships between mindfulness and various outcomes, such as increased wellbeing. Across two undergraduate samples, nonattachment was found to partially mediate relationships between mindful attention and the perceived satisfaction of each of autonomy, competence, and relatedness with others (N = 247), and greater relative autonomous motivation for study (N = 578). The findings therefore support and extend on existing research related to mindful attention within the Self-Determination Theory literature while also adding to the growing literature on the apparent benefits of nonattachment. Future research on autonomous motivation and basic need satisfaction may therefore benefit from considering nonattachment alongside mindful attention.

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Notes

  1. The analyses were replicated using the original sample, inclusive of outliers. No meaningful changes that influenced the interpretation of the results were observed.

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  1. Faculty of Health, Arts, and Design, Swinburne University of Technology, Mail H80, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122, Australia

    Brad Elphinstone, Paul Egan & Richard Whitehead

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3 and 4.

Table 3 Extended results for the mediation analyses in Sample 1
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Table 4 Extended results for the mediation analyses in Sample 2
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Elphinstone, B., Egan, P. & Whitehead, R. Greater autonomous motivation for study and basic psychological need satisfaction by being presently aware and ‘letting go’: An exploration of mindful attention and nonattachment. Motiv Emot 45, 1–12 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-020-09836-4

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