A Study Of Mindfulness-based Intervention On Social Anxiety Of Undergraduate Students

Social anxiety has a series of adverse effects on life quality,learning activity and even job hunting of undergraduate students.It had been proven that mindfulness intervention can effectively reduce social anxiety of undergraduate students.However,there were some limitations in the extant empirical studies.Firstly,the current mindfulness training program that was mainly targeted at population with social anxiety disorders ignored of the early detection and preventive intervention on students’ social anxiety from the perspective of prevention,as well as the cultivation of positive emotional experience and the shaping of positive psychological capital.Thus,it was not suitable for the intervention on social anxiety of undergraduate students.Secondly,the effect of the initial level of social anxiety on the efficacy(i.e.,the differential effect)of mindfulness intervention was ignored,and the dynamic changes of the intervention efficacy differing with the initial level of social anxiety were not investigated.Thirdly,the internal mechanisms on whether mindfulness training alleviates social anxiety through the mediation roles of self-esteem and fear of negative evaluation were not clarified yet.Therefore,this study aimed to adapt the current mindfulness training program to alleviate students’ social anxiety and shape their positive psychological capital,and to examine the differential effect and the time-dependent dynamic changes of mindfulness intervention efficacy,and then to explore the internal mechanisms of mindfulness intervention.In this study,participants were 108 freshmen(male/female: 66/42)were recruited and were catalogued into three groups,high-level,medium-level and low-level group(30,49 and 29)depending on their initial levels of social anxiety measured with interaction anxiety scale(IAS),the cut-off scores of which corresponded to the IAS scores at the upper 27% and the bottom 27% of 446 students.All participants received the same mindfulness training course once a week for 1 hour each time for 8 weeks and self-reported the intervention efficacy at baseline and every 2 weeks during the intervention.The intervention efficacy was assessed with IAS,the five-factor mindfulness questionnaire,the positive psychological capital questionnaire,the fear of negative evaluation scale,the emotion regulation strategies questionnaire and the self-esteem scale.After the intervention,all participants self-reported their experience of mindfulness training.t-test for two paired samples was used to examine the intervention effect,analysis of variance(ANOVA)was used to test the difference among the three groups,repeated measures ANOVA was used to investigate the dynamic change of intervention efficacy,and Granger causality analysis was used to explore the internal mechanisms of mindfulness intervention in social anxiety.In the aspect of the mindfulness training efficacy,the quantitative results revealed that after the8-week mindfulness training,all participants showed the significantly reduced levels in social anxiety and fear of negative evaluation and the improved levels in mindfulness and optimism,but their levels in cognitive reappraisal tended to be significantly improved.Specifically,participants with high initial levels of social anxiety showed the significantly reduced levels in social anxiety,fear of negative evaluation,and suppression,and the improved levels in mindfulness and self-esteem,but their optimism and cognitive reappraisal tended to be significantly increased.Participants in the mediumlevel group showed the significantly decreased levels in fear of negative evaluation and the improved levels in mindfulness,but their social anxiety tended to be significantly reduced and their optimism to be significantly improved.Participants in the low-level group showed the significantly reduced levels in fear of negative evaluation and the improved levels in mindfulness.The self-reported results showed that mindfulness training could effectively reduce students’ social anxiety,and improve their levels in attention,learning efficiency,and sleep quality,and relieve of physical pain.These results confirmed the effectiveness of mindfulness training in social anxiety.In the aspect of the differential effect of mindfulness training,the effect of mindfulness training on social anxiety,optimism and cognitive reappraisal varied with the initial level of social anxiety.Specifically,the participants in the high-level group got more improvement than those in the mediumand low-level groups.In contrast,the effects of mindfulness training on mindfulness,hope,fear of negative evaluation,self-esteem and suppression did not vary with the initial level of social anxiety.In the aspect of the dynamic change with the training time,participants with different initial levels of social anxiety showed the dynamic changes with training time in social anxiety,mindfulness,optimism,fear of negative evaluation,cognitive reappraisal and self-esteem,but no dynamic changes in hope and suppression.Specifically,participants in the high-level group showed the largest changes in social anxiety,mindfulness and fear of negative evaluation in the first 4 weeks of the mindfulness training,and in optimism in the first 6 weeks,and in cognitive reappraisal in the middle 4 weeks.Participants in the medium-level group showed the largest changes in mindfulness and fear of negative evaluation in the first 4 weeks,and in optimism in the first 6 weeks.Participants in the lowlevel group showed the largest change in mindfulness in the first 4 weeks.In brief,the dynamic changes were mainly concentrated in the first 4 weeks of the mindfulness training.In the aspect of the internal mechanisms of mindfulness training,Granger causality analysis suggested that cognitive reappraisal and self-esteem might act as mediators in the effect of mindfulness training on high-level social anxiety while fear of negative evaluation and self-esteem might act as mediators in the effect of mindfulness training on medium-level social anxiety.In conclusion,mindfulness training can alleviate social anxiety of undergraduate students,and improve their mindfulness,and shape their positive psychological capital.The effect of the intervention varied with the students’ initial level of social anxiety and training time.Cognitive reappraisal,self-esteem and fear of negative evaluation may intermediate the effect of mindfulness training intervention on social anxiety.