Sahdra Baljinder et al. (Australian Catholic University, Australia)
Equanimity may be more important than self-esteem for nurturing prosocial qualities in young people
Many mindfulness-based interventions incorporate methods to promote equanimity, defined as a willingness to allow positive and negative inner experiences to occur and pass without attempts to control or cling to them. Such interventions do not typically seek to directly increase self-esteem. We investigated the extent to which equanimity and self-esteem were associated with observed acts of kindness and helping (“prosocial behaviour”) in a large sample of adolescences (N = 1831, mean age = 15.65; females = 51%). Multilevel Poisson analyses revealed that equanimity, not self-esteem, predicted peer nominations of prosocial behaviours. Boys nominated highly equanimous boys as prosocial, but did not nominate highly equanimous girls as prosocial. In contrast, girls nominated highly equanimous girls and boys as prosocial. This is the first study of equanimity in adolescents using a brief measure of equanimity that was internally consistent and showed discriminant validity with respect to self-esteem in predicting peer-observed behaviour. We will discuss the implications of these findings for understanding processes of positive change in mindfulness-based interventions.
Equanimity may be more important than self-esteem for nurturing prosocial qualities in young people
Many mindfulness-based interventions incorporate methods to promote equanimity, defined as a willingness to allow positive and negative inner experiences to occur and pass without attempts to control or cling to them. Such interventions do not typically seek to directly increase self-esteem. We investigated the extent to which equanimity and self-esteem were associated with observed acts of kindness and helping (“prosocial behaviour”) in a large sample of adolescences (N = 1831, mean age = 15.65; females = 51%). Multilevel Poisson analyses revealed that equanimity, not self-esteem, predicted peer nominations of prosocial behaviours. Boys nominated highly equanimous boys as prosocial, but did not nominate highly equanimous girls as prosocial. In contrast, girls nominated highly equanimous girls and boys as prosocial. This is the first study of equanimity in adolescents using a brief measure of equanimity that was internally consistent and showed discriminant validity with respect to self-esteem in predicting peer-observed behaviour. We will discuss the implications of these findings for understanding processes of positive change in mindfulness-based interventions.