Human behavior is explained by various theories and approaches for many years. Third wave cognitive and behavioral approaches including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999) has emerged in last decades. ACT has widened cognitive behaviour therapy with its new perspective in which sustaining psychological flexibility is the core aim of therapy. Psychological flexibility is defined as experiencing emotions, thoughts or past events without trying to change them and provides being conscious in the present moment based on values by some ways of acceptance, commitment and behavior interventions (Hayes & Lillis, 2012). Psychological flexibility eventually requires present moment awareness and actions with regard to values. In this regard, mindfulness that is defined as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p4), is closely related to values and therefore psychological flexibility. ACT posits that every individual already has the capacity to live a rich and meaningful life. Most people on the other hand are impaired to see and follow their valued directions due to verbal fusion and experiential avoidance experiences. It is vital at this point to understand how cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance interfere with one’s values. Hayes and Smith (2005) states that values from an ACT perspective are not just goals in life, or thoughts and emotions individuals have, but instead they are freely chosen life directions. Values are choices that are continuous in nature which never ends, and they are in the present rather than in the future or in the past. The studies on mindfulness and acceptance with diverse populations, settings, and clinical problems are not yet fully investigated (Woidneck, Pratt, Gundy, Nelson, & Twohig, 2012). Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of values between the relationship of mindfulness and psychological flexibility. 

The study was based on correlational research design. The sample of the study consisted of 432 undergraduate students with an age range of 18 to 35 years (M = 20.59, SD = 1.81) from two universities (one state and one private university) in Turkey. Among participants, 344 (79.3%) were female and 88 (20.3%) were male. Data collection instruments were Acceptance and Action Questionnaire – II (AAQ-II; Bond et al., 2011), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003), Valuing Questionnaire (VQ; Smout, Davies, Burns, & Christie, 2014) and demographic information form. After getting necessary ethical permissions, participants were recruited by informing about voluntary participation. The scales were applied during class hours in paper-pencil format. The application of all instruments in the current study took approximately 15 minutes. Descriptive statistics were summarized via using SPSS 23 and path analysis was conducted to test the model by using AMOS version 18 software

The current study investigated the mediating role of values in the relationship between mindfulness and psychological inflexibility with college sample. Before running the SEM analysis, data was screened in terms of missing values, normality and linearity assumption checks and found no problem, on the other hand, multivariate normality was violated according to Mardia’s test. Therefore, item parceling was conducted for MAAS and VQ in further analysis. As the result of the analysis, the mean score of mindfulness was reported as 58.03 (SD=10.19), for values as 46.57 (SD=9.75) and for psychological inflexibility as 23.18 (SD=8.55). Moreover, bivariate correlations were checked for multicollinearity. In the current study, bivariate correlations were found as r=-.32 (psychological inflexibility-mindfulness), r=.38 (mindfulness-values) and r=-.49 (psychological inflexibility-values) between variables. The hypothesized model was tested with SEM analysis by using AMOS 18 software. The result of model testing revealed the following fit indices: χ2 (171.601, n = 432) = 2.60 and GFI= .94, CFI = .94, NFI = .92, TLI = .92, and RMSEA= .077. According to the results, while mindfulness was a significant predictor of psychological inflexibility, values had a mediating role in the relationship between mindfulness and psychological inflexibility. The direct and indirect effects were also tested. The amount of variance for each endogenous variable explained was checked by examining squared multiple correlation coefficient (R2) in the model. While the proportion of the variance explained by values was %23 and the variance explained by psychological inflexibility was %40.

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