The relationship between proactive coping with difficult life situations and the level of mindfulness: A cross-cultural analysis

Abstract

The modern understanding of the processes of coping with difficult life situations, emphasizing the provision of subjective well-being as their function, raises the question of what factors ensure the final effectiveness of coping strategies. The inconsistency of the available empirical data on the relationship between personal and situational predictors as well as effective coping allows us to assume the presence of mediating variables. Their search can be centered both on the inclusion of parameters of a higher socio-cognitive level in the analysis, and on the procedural characteristics of coping, one of which is proactivity in coping. The mindfulness construct seems to meet both of these requirements. The article presents the results of the preliminary and main stages of an empirical study of the relationship between mindfulness and proactive coping strategies. During the preliminary stage, the questionnaire “scale of awareness” was adapted to correspond to the “Western” model of awareness. During the main stage, the results of the relationship of mindfulness indicators according to the “Eastern” and “Western” models with proactivity strategies in two samples (Moscow — Tashkent) were obtained, which allowed us to identify certain cultural differences. The results indicate that there are partial correlations between the indicators of the two mindfulness questionnaires, which is consistent with existing theoretical concepts and allows us to consider the two models of mindfulness as stages of a single process. It is shown that in both samples, indicators of “Western” awareness are associated with the attitude to potential difficulties as a source of positive experience and with reflection in the event of the occurrence of possible variants of behavior, cognitive assessment of one’s own resources and prediction of results, as well as with a proactivity strategy such as the search for instrumental support. Cross-cultural differences were noted on a scale corresponding to “Eastern” awareness: in the sample of Tashkent, it was associated with a strategy of proactive coping, and in the sample of Moscow — with reflexive coping. The obtained relationship between the two types of mindfulness and proactive coping strategies allows us to conclude that mindfulness has the potential of meta-cognitive function in the structure of human activity, especially in the situation of evaluating possible life difficulties.