The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of mindfulness and compassion on interpersonal relationships, and mediating roles of emotion regulation and social connectedness. Structural equation modeling involving 382 undergraduate students was conducted. Findings suggest that mindfulness contributed to interpersonal relationships directly as well as indirectly via its impacts on emotion regulation and social connectedness. That is, mindfulness was shown to directly improve interpersonal relationships, but it was also shown to increase emotion regulation capacity and social connectedness, which enhanced interpersonal relationships. As for compassion, the results support a full mediation by social connectedness, indicating that compassion alters a person’s perspective on the social world for the better, positively affecting interpersonal relationships. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
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