The investigation of the relationships between mindfulness, attachment styles and depression levels of university students : The mediating role of self-control

The objective of this study is to investigate the mediating role of self-control in the relationships between depression and trait mindfulness and each of adult attachment styles (secure, avoidant, fearful and preoccupied) in university students . The study group consisted of 808 university students who attended to various programs at Anadolu University in 2015-2016 Academic Year. "Beck Depression Inventory", "Mindful Attention Awareness Scale", "Relationships Scales Questionnaire" and "Brief Self-Control Scale" were used to assess study constructs. To test the mediating models, Descriptive Statistics, Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Bootstrapping Method were applied. Based on the results from the statistical mediation analyses, it has been observed that self-control has a statistically significant mediation effect on the relationship between Trait Mindfulness, and each of the adult attachment styles (secure, avoidant, fearful and preoccupied) and depression in university students . The results indicated that self-control mediated the relationship between secure attachment, mindfulness and depression negatively, whand mediated the relationship between avoidant, fearful and preoccupied attachment and depression positively. According to the research results, secure attachment and mindfulness were associated with high self-control and lower depression; on the other hand, avoidant, fearful and preoccupied attachment were associated with low self-control and greater depression. Keywords: Depression, Attachment, Mindfulness, Self-Control.