Relationships between mindfulness, flow dispositions and mental skills adoption: A cluster analytic approach

Objectives: This study examines the relationships between mindfulness, flow dispositions and mental skills adoption. Design: Cluster analytic approach. Methods: Participants in this study were 182 university student athletes. They were administered the Mindfulness/Mindlessness Scale [MMS; Bodner, T., & Langer, E. (2001). Individual differences in mindfulness: The Langer Mindfulness Scale. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Toronto, Ont., Canada], Dispositional Flow Scale 2 [DFS-2; Jackson, S. A., & Eklund, R. C. (2004). The flow scale manual. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology] and Test of Performance Strategies [TOPS; Thomas, P. R., Murphy, S. M., & Hardy, L. (1999). Test of performance strategies: Development and preliminary validation of a comprehensive measure of athletes’ psychological skills. Journal of Sports Sciences, 17, 697–711]. Results: Four distinctive mindfulness clusters were found based on their response on the MMS using cluster analysis. Marked differences in flow dispositions and mental skills adoption habits were observed between the high and the low mindfulness clusters. Those in the high mindfulness cluster scored significantly higher than the low mindfulness clusters in challenge–skill balance, merging of action and awareness, clear goals, concentration and loss of self-consciousness scores of the DFS-2 [Jackson, S.A., & Eklund, R.C. (2004). The flow scale manual. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology]. The high see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. psychsport.2007.07.001 ding author. Tel.: +65 67903702; fax: +65 68969260. ress: [email protected] (C.K. John Wang). a doctoral student at the Department of Physical Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei