The purpose of this work was to study the relationship between self-focused
attention and mindfulness in participants prone to hallucinations and others who
were not. A sample of 318 healthy participants, students at the universities of
Sevilla and Almería, was given the Launay-Slade Hallucinations
Scale-revised (LSHS-R, Bentall & Slade, 1985). Based on this sample, two groups were formed:
participants with high (n = 55) and low proneness
(n = 28) to hallucinations. Participants with a
score higher than a standard deviation from the mean in the LSHS-R were included
in the high proneness group, participants with a score lower than a standard
deviation from the mean in the LSHR-R were included in the second one. All
participants were also given the Self-Absorption Scale (SAS, McKenzie
& Hoyle, 2008) and the
Southampton Mindfulness Questionnaire (SMQ, Chadwick et al., 2008). The results showed that
participants with high hallucination proneness had significantly higher levels
of public (t(80) = 6.81, p
< .001) and private (t(77) = 7.39,
p < .001) self-focused attention and lower levels
of mindfulness (t(81) = -4.56, p
< .001) than participants in the group with low hallucination
proneness. A correlational analysis showed a negative association between
self-focused attention (private and public) and mindfulness (r
= -0.23, p < .001; r
= -0.38, p < .001 respectively). Finally,
mindfulness was found to partly mediate between self-focused attention and
hallucination proneness. The importance of self-focused attention and
mindfulness in understanding the etiology of hallucinations discussed and
suggest some approaches to their treatment.