Investigating the mediating role of mental vitality in the relationship between mindfulness and self-differentiation of secondary school students

The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the mediating role of mental vitality in the relationship between mindfulness and self-differentiation of second year high school students. The current research was correlational research in which the relationships between research variables were analyzed in the form of investigating the paths of a causal model. The research population was all students of the second year of high school in Isfahan city, who were selected by available sampling method. The research tools were Baer et al.'s mindfulness questionnaire (2006), Skorn and Friedlander's (1998) self-differentiation questionnaire, and Ryan and Frederick's (1997) standard mental vitality scale questionnaire. SPSS software version 25 and AMOS software version 24 were used to check the proposed research model and statistical analysis of data. The results showed that mental vitality plays a mediating role in the relationship between mindfulness and self-differentiation. The results of structural equations showed that mindfulness has a direct, positive and significant relationship with both mental vitality and self-differentiation. Finally, the findings showed that mental vitality has a direct, positive and meaningful relationship with self-differentiation. Therefore, direct and indirect relationships were obtained in this meaningful model and the mediating role was confirmed. The model fit indices also showed that the final research model has an acceptable fit.