Does mindfulness mediate the relationship between social anhedonia and psychological distress?

Objectives: Although social anhedonia is associated with psychological distress, the mechanisms of social anhedonia that lead to psychological distress are not well understood. A lack of being present or low dispositional mindfulness may partially mediate the relationship. Low extraversion and social anhedonia are associated; thus, extraversion was included as a control variable in our study. Our study aimed to explore the relationships between social anhedonia, mindfulness, psychological distress and extraversion and whether mindfulness and its facets partially mediate the relationship between social anhedonia and psychological distress. Methods: Four hundred and thirty-two participants completed a self-report survey online. Participants were undergraduate students at the University of Newcastle. Results: Hypotheses were investigated using correlations and mediation analyses. Social anhedonia had a small negative association with mindfulness and a small positive association with psychological distress. Social anhedonia had a moderate negative correlation with extraversion. Mindfulness facets non-judgement and non-reactivity had the strongest negative correlation with psychological distress. Mindfulness and its facets did not mediate the relationship between social anhedonia and psychological distress. Conclusions: Findings did not support the hypothesis that mindfulness and its facets would mediate the relationship between social anhedonia and psychological distress. Our findings did provide further evidence of associations between social anhedonia and psychological distress, low dispositional mindfulness, and extraversion. Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms behind social anhedonia’s association with psychological distress.