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While many studies indicated that higher psychological wellbeing is associated with better self-regulation and lower mind-wandering, previous research mostly applied an individualistic self-centred perspective on these constructs. The present study proposed an ethically-grounded relational perspective on self-regulation and mind-wandering via postulation and examination of the humanity-oriented trait in relation to self-regulation and mind-wandering. Specifically, we investigated whether this trait could counter possible negative self-centred aspects of self-regulation, and whether the humanity-oriented trait could attenuate the negative (self-focus related) effects of mind-wandering, in predicting increased psychological wellbeing. Three hundred and eighty Chinese students filled out questionnaires on self-regulation, mind-wandering, humanity-oriented trait, and psychological wellbeing. We first validated the Chinese version of the Light Triad Scale (LTS-C) used in this study to measure the humanity-oriented trait. As expected, psychological wellbeing was positively correlated with self-regulation and negatively correlated with mind-wandering. Humanity-oriented trait, in combination with self-regulation, better predicted psychological wellbeing than self-regulation alone. Humanity-oriented trait also attenuated the negative effect of mind-wandering in predicting enhanced psychological wellbeing. These results provide the first empirical evidence indicating that the humanity-oriented trait needs to be cultivated alongside self-regulation to foster psychological wellbeing and lower mind-wandering.
Wang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.