Mindfulness and meaning in life: The mediating effect of self-concept clarity and coping self-efficacy during the COVID-19 pandemic

The current study aimed to investigate self-concept clarity and coping self-efficacy as mechanisms for mindfulness and meaning in life in a community pandemic experience. Participants were 538 Chinese college students (female = 70.40%, mean age = 20.01 years, SD = 1.31 years). The students completed the following measures: Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, Self-concept Clarity Scale, Coping Self-efficacy Scale, and Meaning in Life Questionnaire. Following path analyses, results showed that mindfulness was significantly and positively related to meaning in life. Mediation analysis revealed that self-concept clarity, as well as coping self-efficacy, played a mediating role between mindfulness and meaning in life, increasing meaning in life. In terms of self-concept and coping self-efficacy, coping self-efficacy had a stronger effect on the relationship between mindlessness and meaning in life, accounting for 33.0% and 64.3% of the total effect, respectively. The findings suggest that gains in mindfulness predicted greater meaning in life through both self-concept clarity and coping self-efficacy.