Cette étude a pour but de comprendre les liens entre pleine conscience dispositionnelle, recherche de sensations et comportements antisociaux en utilisant des analyses de corrélations et classificatoires. Un échantillon de 1572 étudiants (âge moyen=20,30±2,01) a répondu à des questionnaires évaluant ces dimensions ainsi que la symptomatologie dépressive et les consommations d’alcool et de cannabis. Une analyse de classification basée sur les scores de pleine conscience et de recherche de sensations a permis d’obtenir quatre groupes très distincts : un groupe à bas traits (BT), un groupe avec des scores élevés de pleine conscience (HP), un troisième groupe avec un haut niveau de recherche de sensations (HS) et un dernier groupe avec des niveaux élevés de pleine conscience et de recherche de sensations (HPS). Le groupe HS présente des scores de comportements antisociaux significativement plus élevés que ceux des autres groupes, tandis que le groupe HP a un niveau de comportements antisociaux moins élevés que celui des trois autres groupes. Ces résultats suggèrent que des aptitudes à la pleine conscience pourraient modérer l’effet de la recherche de sensation élevée sur les comportements antisociaux. Cette étude offre des pistes pour la prévention et le traitement des comportements antisociaux à travers des interventions basées sur la pleine conscience.

Mindfulness skills and sensation seeking have been found to be differently associated with antisocial behavior in young adult. On the one hand, dispositional mindfulness is negatively associated with verbal aggression behaviors, anger, hostility and impulsivity (Brown and Ryan, 2003 ; Heppner et al., 2008), and, on the other hand, it can reduce some aggressive behavior following a rejection situation (Heppner et al., 2008). In heightened mindfulness, situations generally perceived as threats are assessed differently and lead to more appropriate behaviors. Similarly, depressive symptomatology, cannabis use and alcohol use, seem to be related to dispositional mindfulness and antisocial behaviors (Karyadi et al., 2014 ; Royuela-Colomer and Calvete, 2016). However, factors such as sensation seeking are important to take into account in the psychopathology of adolescents and young adults. Sensation seeking and dispositional mindfulness refer jointly to aspects of emotional regulation. Sensation seeking has been linked to the development of antisocial behaviors (Wilson and Scarpa, 2011), and to proactive and reactive aggression in adolescents (Pérez-Fuentes et al., 2016). Sensation seeking is also associated with alcohol use (LaBrie et al., 2014), and is an independent predictor of cannabis and alcohol use in adolescents (Chabrol et al., 2010). To our knowledge, no study has jointly highlighted sensation seeking and mindfulness to understand antisocial behavior. The aim of this study was to explore the links between dispositional mindfulness, sensation seeking and antisocial behavior using correlation and cluster analyzes.

Participants were 1572 students from different French universities who completed self-report questionnaires assessing these dimensions as well as depressive symptomatology and alcohol and cannabis use.

Correlation analyzes show that dispositional mindfulness is negatively correlated with antisocial behavior (r=−0.28, P<0.05) and with depressive symptoms (r=−0.54, P<0.05), while sensation seeking is positively correlated with alcohol (r=0.26, P<0.05) and cannabis use (r=0.27, P<0.05) and antisocial behavior (r=0.18 ; P<0.05) (Table 1). A classification analysis based on the dispositional mindfulness and sensation seeking scores yielded four distinct groups: a low-score cluster (BT), a high mindfulness cluster (HP), a third cluster with a high level of sensation seeking (HS) and a final cluster with high levels of mindfulness and sensation seeking (HPS) (Fig. 1). The HS cluster, characterized by low levels of dispositional mindfulness and a high level of sensation seeking showed significantly higher scores of antisocial behavior, alcohol and cannabis use, and problematic cannabis use than those of the other groups (Table 2). The HS group also had a high level of depressive symptoms.

This result confirms the influence of sensation seeking on specific psychopathological factors (Chabrol et al., 2010 ; Pérez-Fuentes et al., 2016), particularly when dispositional mindfulness is low. The HP and HPS clusters, which are characterized by a high level of dispositional mindfulness, are distinguished by a significantly lower frequency of antisocial behavior and depressive symptoms. This result suggests that mindfulness may be a protective factor for antisocial behavior (Heppner et al., 2008) and depressive symptoms (Royuela-Colomer and Calvete, 2016), regardless of the level of sensation seeking. There are limitations to this study. Firstly, the data collection was carried out through an online survey published on social networks. This mode of data collection can lead to an under-representation of some participant profiles, especially those with high impulsivity. Secondly, the use of self-report questionnaires can be problematic, although they have shown their validity in the assessment of dispositional mindfulness and antisocial behaviors (Bohlmeijer et al., 2011 ; Heeren et al., 2011). Thirdly, it is not known whether the results of the current study are applicable to a forensic sample, since all participants were university students.

Future research should include participants with forensic and high antisocial behavior. The results suggest paying particular attention to dispositional mindfulness in the understanding of specific psychopathological disorders. As behavioral disorders are regularly associated, mindfulness-based interventions, effective at different levels, could offer possibilities for the treatment of comorbid psychopathologies (Wupperman et al., 2015). Finally, mindfulness seems to be able to moderate the impact of certain factors such as sensation seeking.