The interaction of mindful awareness and acceptance in couples satisfaction

•Mindful awareness and acceptance interact to predict couples satisfaction.•The interaction is examined with both awareness and acceptance as moderators.•Implications for mindfulness-based treatment are discussed.

Past studies indicate that the awareness and acceptance facets of trait mindfulness both independently predict relationship satisfaction. However, this study hypothesized that the combination of awareness and acceptance might be a stronger contributor to relationship functioning than either in isolation. Regression analyses were used to test whether mindful awareness and acceptance interact in predicting couples satisfaction in a sample of dating or married college students (n = 138). Acceptance was positively associated with couples satisfaction, while awareness was unrelated. These two mindfulness facets interacted such that greater awareness was related to poorer satisfaction when acceptance was low, but was unrelated when acceptance was high. Conversely, greater acceptance was only related to greater satisfaction when awareness was moderate or high. These results suggest the combination of high awareness and low acceptance can be problematic for relationships, while at least moderate mindful awareness is needed for acceptance to be beneficial.