Background and Aims: As the downsides of the self-esteem promotion becoming more and more significant in western psychology, mainstream positive psychology research has gradually tried to learn from eastern wisdom in recent years, emphasizing how a  low-key and restrained ego can produce flexibility and psychological strength. These arguments for the restrained ego include quiet-ego (Bauer & Wayment, 2008), hypo-ego (Leary & Terry, 2012), and selfless (Dambrun & Ricard, 2011). After sorting out these  related concepts, this study proposes the concept of “less self”, which includes three components: decentering, experience awareness, and allo-connection. I also propose two operating routes from “less self” to psychological adaptation. That is, decentering promotes positive psychological functioning and reduces negative ones were mediated respectively by allo-connection and experience awareness.

Method:  Two studies (N=112, 104) were conducted to exam these two hypothesis by mediation path analyses. The concept of decentering was measured by Decentering subscale of Experiences Questionnaire (Fresco, 2007), allo-connection were measure by the Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal Scale (Cross et. al., 2000) in study1 and Metapersonal Self Scale (Arnocky, et. al., 2007) in study1&2,  experience awareness were indexed by Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS, Brown & Ryan, 2003) in study1 and Five Factors Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ, Baer et. al., 2006) in study2.

Results and conclusions:  The mediation analyses  supported the double-route hypothesis. Decentering improved positive psychological adaptation (life satisfaction, positive affect, peace of mind) through allo-connection, and reduced negative emotions and depression tendencies through experience awareness (MAAS in study1, FFMQ, especially on Action Awareness subscale, in study2 ).  These results suggested that the mechanism of quiet, hypo, or less-self starts from self-decentering and then reduces negative impact and promotes positive psychological health via focusing on experiences itself or focusing on bigger than the self respectively.