Age and sex-specific differences of mindfulness traits with measurement invariance controlled in Chinese adult population: A pilot study

Ruochen Gan; Yanping Wei; Limin Sun; Liuyi Zhang; Jiayu Wang; Tingfei Zhu; Shulin Chen; Jiang Xue

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19608

Age and sex-specific differences of mindfulness traits with measurement invariance controlled in Chinese adult population: A pilot study

Heliyon. 2023 Aug 29;9(9):e19608. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19608. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Ruochen Gan¹, Yanping Wei¹, Limin Sun¹, Liuyi Zhang¹, Jiayu Wang¹, Tingfei Zhu¹, Shulin Chen¹, Jiang Xue^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology and Behavioral Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
² School of Humanities and Management, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China.

Abstract

Objectives: To examine the relationships of age and sex with mindfulness traits among Chinese adults with controlling for measurement invariance.

Methods: A total of 1777 participants completing the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire were included for analysis. Their age and sex information were also collected. Descriptive analysis, Pearson's Chi-Square test and analysis of variance were performed to test the age- and sex-specific differences, measurement invariance was examined by confirmatory factor analysis.

Results: Excellent data fit to the model indicated configural, metric, and scalar invariance across age and sex. Participants aged 60 or above scored significantly higher in dimensions of acting with awareness, nonjudging of inner experience, nonreactivity to inner experience, and the total scores than younger individuals, who had higher scores in the observing domain. In addition, females scored higher in describing and observing than males, while the latter had higher score in nonreactivity to inner experience.

Conclusions: The Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire Mindfulness showed acceptable measurement invariance across age and sex in Chinese adult population. The old and the young differs in the traits of awareness, observing, nonjudging of inner experience, nonreactivity to inner experience and the total mindfulness level, while males and females varied in describing, observing and nonreactivity to inner experience. Individual differences should be considered and well addressed in future studies on mindfulness.

Keywords: Chinese population; Confirmatory factor analysis; Measurement invariance; Mindfulness traits.