Causal Explanation of Social- Emotional Loneliness of Undergraduate Students of Shiraz University Base on Mindfulness and Moral Disengagement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between mindfulness and social- emotional loneliness in the undergraduate students of Shiraz University. This study was a correlational design and it was conducted by structural equation modeling. The Statistical population of the research included all undergraduate students at Shiraz University who were studying during 1397-98 year. Participants were 360 (190 girls and 170 boys) undergraduate students at Shiraz University which were selected via random cluster sampling method, and completed the mindfulness scale of Droutman et al. (2018), moral disengagement of Bandura et al. (1996), and social- emotional loneliness of Di Tommaso et al. (2004). The validity and reliability of the research scales were also verified by confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS software version 24) and Cronbach's alpha coefficient (SPSS version 24 software). The results indicated that the research model fits well with the data collected. Also, The findings revealed that the negative effect of mindfulness on social- emotional loneliness (β= -0/40, p<0/003), negative effect of mindfulness on moral disengagement (β= -0/42, p<0/01), positive effect of moral disengagement on social- emotional loneliness (β= 0/31, p<0/02), and The negative effect of mindfulness on social- emotional loneliness mediated by moral disengagement (β= -0/13, p <0/02) were significant. In general, the findings of the present study illustrate the role of mindfulness and moral disengagement in explaining social- emotional loneliness.