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a, b, c Three mediational analyses. All values are beta-standardized coefficients. The values in parentheses show the relationship between meditative practice and values when indirect effect of EQ, FFMQ describe, and FFMQ non-judge are excluded. Signification of indirect effects was calculated by the Sobel test. *p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.005. Medit. practice meditative practice
Source publication
Clarification of personal values and meditation practice has been associated in most meditation traditions and in academic texts. Both values-related behavior and meditation practice increases well-being, but their relationship has not been well studied. It has been suggested that values, together with self-regulation, psychological flexibility, an...
Citations
... Mindfulness has been hypothesized to promote proenvironmental behavior 7 . Theories posit that mindfulness could disrupt unsustainable habits by reducing automatic responses and emotional reactivity as well as by enhancing the congruence between values and behaviors, thereby fostering proenvironmental behavior [17][18][19][20][21][22] . However, the hypothesized mindfulness-environmental link is only partially supported by empirical evidence. ...
Theoretical accounts posit that mindfulness promotes proenvironmental behavior. While this claim is supported by correlational findings, past intervention studies provided no evidence that enhancing mindfulness increases self-report measures of proenvironmental behavior. Here, we tested whether a 31-day mindfulness intervention strengthens preferences for proenvironmental outcomes with decision tasks involving real conflict between participants’ selfish interests and beneficial consequences for the environment. To unravel the psychological mechanisms underlying the impact of mindfulness on proenvironmental behavior, we assessed the impact of mindfulness training on prosociality and future orientation. Contrary to our hypotheses, the mindfulness intervention reduced instead of increased preferences for proenvironmental and prosocial outcomes, whereas no effects were observed on future orientation. Baseline preferences for proenvironmental and prosocial outcomes (and the intervention effects on them) were correlated, providing empirical evidence for a link between proenvironmental behavior and prosociality. Together, the current data suggest that the relationship between mindfulness and proenvironmental behavior as well as prosociality may be more complicated than assumed in the literature.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-024-79137-0.
... Reliable neural maps enabled by ENIGMA-Meditation may help to identify and harmonize common constructs across varied meditation practices and states by exploring their subjective, cultural, semantic, and conceptual pluralities (9,110,111). For example, compassion, empathy, meta-awareness, equanimity, bliss, nonduality, and decentering, among others, are often considered to be essential outcomes, phenomenological dimensions, and states across different meditation practices (9,14,109,(112)(113)(114)(115)(116). Statistically empowered participant-level mega-analyses from ENIGMA-Meditation could illuminate some of the relationships between these phenomenological and neuroscientific dimensions. ...
Meditation is a family of ancient and contemporary contemplative mind-body practices that can modulate psychological processes, awareness, and mental states. Over the last 40 years, clinical science has manualised meditation practices and designed various meditation interventions (MIs), that have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders including depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety. Over the past decade, neuroimaging has examined the neuroscientific basis of meditation practices, effects, states, and outcomes for clinical and non-clinical populations. However, the generalizability and replicability of current neuroscientific models of meditation are yet to be established, as they are largely based on small datasets entrenched with heterogeneity along several domains of meditation (e.g., practice types, meditation experience, clinical disorder targeted), experimental design, and neuroimaging methods (e.g., preprocessing, analysis, task-based, resting-state, structural MRI). These limitations have precluded a nuanced and rigorous neuroscientific phenotyping of meditation practices and their potential benefits. Here, we present ENIGMA-Meditation, the first worldwide collaborative consortium for neuroscientific investigations of meditation practices. ENIGMA-Meditation will enable systematic meta- and mega-analyses of globally distributed neuroimaging datasets of meditation using shared, standardized neuroimaging methods and tools to improve statistical power and generalizability. Through this powerful collaborative framework, existing neuroscientific accounts of meditation practices can be extended to generate novel and rigorous neuroscientific insights, accounting for multi-domain heterogeneity. ENIGMA-Meditation will inform neuroscientific mechanisms underlying therapeutic action of meditation practices on psychological and cognitive attributes, advancing the field of meditation and contemplative neuroscience.
... Likewise, greater trait mindfulness has been associated with better cognitive performance like decreased mind-wandering (Mrazek, Smallwood, & Schooler, 2012), improved sustained attention (Shin, Black, Shonkoff, Riggs, & Pentz, 2016), and improved academic scores (Caballero et al., 2019). More broadly, trait mindfulness has been identified as a mediator in the relationship between life experiences and well-being (MAAS; Saricali, Satici, Satici, Gocet-Tekin, & Griffiths, 2022;FFMQ;Beshai, Salimuddin, Refaie, & Maierhoffer, 2022;Franquesa et al., 2017;Josefsson, Larsman, Broberg, & Lundh, 2011). ...
Trait self-report mindfulness scales measure one's disposition to pay nonjudgmental attention to the present moment. Concerns have been raised about the validity of trait mindfulness scales. Despite this, there is extensive literature correlating mindfulness scales with objective brain measures, with the goal of providing insight into mechanisms of mindfulness, and insight into associated positive mental health outcomes. Here, we systematically examined the neural correlates of trait mindfulness. We assessed 68 correlational studies across structural magnetic resonance imaging, task-based fMRI, resting-state fMRI, and EEG. Several consistent findings were identified, associating greater trait mindfulness with decreased amygdala reactivity to emotional stimuli, increased cortical thickness in frontal regions and insular cortex regions, and decreased connectivity within the default-mode network. These findings converged with results from intervention studies and those that included mindfulness experts. On the other hand, the connections between trait mindfulness and EEG metrics remain inconclusive, as do the associations between trait mindfulness and between-network resting-state fMRI metrics. ERP measures from EEG used to measure attentional or emotional processing may not show reliable individual variation. Research on body awareness and self-relevant processing is scarce. For a more robust correlational neuroscience of trait mindfulness, we recommend larger sample sizes, data-driven, multivariate approaches to self-report and brain measures, and careful consideration of test–retest reliability. In addition, we should leave behind simplistic explanations of mindfulness, as there are many ways to be mindful, and leave behind simplistic explanations of the brain, as distributed networks of brain areas support mindfulness.
... To illustrate, path analysis showed that decentering linked mindfulness to positive affect among undergraduate students (e.g., . Among individuals with no meditation experience and with varying levels of meditation experience, decentering linked the association between meditation practice and value-based behaviors (e.g., Franquesa et al., 2017). Parallel results were reported in intervention studies among healthy and clinical samples. ...
Objectives
It has been assumed that decentering is one mechanism underlying the health-promoting benefits of mindfulness. This study aimed to investigate the potential mediating role of decentering in the relationship of mindfulness with psychological problems. Moreover, this study examined whether age and clinical status moderated this relationship.
Method
This study systematically reviewed prior studies published until May 2023. Data were extracted from survey results in observational studies and from baseline scores in intervention studies. The technique of meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) was applied to analyze the aggregated data. Moderator analyses examined the role of individual characteristics in the relations between (1) mindfulness and decentering, (2) decentering and psychological problems, and (3) mindfulness and psychological problems.
Results
The final meta-analysis included 110 effect sizes extracted from 57 studies, with a total number of 18,515 participants. Overall, the MASEM results showed that mindfulness had a positive, large direct effect on decentering (β = 0.42, 95% CI[0.38, 0.47]), and a negative, small-to-medium direct effect on psychological problems (β = − 0.25, 95% CI[− 0.31, − 0.20]). Decentering also had a negative, modest direct effect on psychological problems (β = − 0.24, 95% CI[− 0.29, − 0.19]). Regarding the indirect effect, decentering had a significant, small effect in the association between mindfulness and psychological problems (β = − 0.10, 95% CI[− 0.13, − 0.08]). Moderator analyses suggested that these effects were consistent across age and clinical status.
Conclusions
The current results provide preliminary evidence that the correlation between mindfulness and decentering carries over to psychological problems. Understanding this correlation is an essential step towards mapping out the underlying psychological processes moving from mindfulness to psychological outcomes. The cultivation of decentering skills should be embedded in mindfulness-based training to confer benefits on psychological problems. Moreover, secular programs that do not include cultural or spiritual aspects of mindfulness need to expand their current knowledge of what decentering involves and what impedes effective decentering.
Preregistration
This study is not preregistered.
... Individuals in this state are thought to be more attentive, clear, satisfied, and peaceful, allowing them to potentially engage in therapy more effectively, developing insight into mental and behavioral patterns underlying psychological suffering [109]. Meditation is associated with life goals and values through decentering, describing, and non-judging facets of mindfulness [110]. ACAM-J may strengthen these qualities, making them potentially useful for overcoming psychological suffering during therapy sessions. ...
Meditation has been integral to human culture for millennia, deeply rooted in various spiritual and contemplative traditions. While the field of contemplative science has made significant steps toward understanding the effects of meditation on health and well-being, there has been little study of advanced meditative states, including those achieved through intense concentration and absorption. We refer to these types of states as advanced concentrative absorption meditation (ACAM), characterized by absorption with the meditation object leading to states of heightened attention, clarity, energy, effortlessness, and bliss. This review focuses on a type of ACAM known as jhana (ACAM-J) due to its well-documented history, systematic practice approach, recurring phenomenological themes, and growing popularity among contemplative scientists and more generally in media and society. ACAM-J encompasses eight layers of deep concentration, awareness, and internal experiences. Here, we describe the phenomenology of ACAM-J and present evidence from phenomenological and neuroscientific studies that highlight their potential applications in contemplative practices, psychological sciences, and therapeutics. We additionally propose theoretical ACAM-J frameworks grounded in current cognitive neuroscientific understanding of meditation and ancient contemplative traditions. We aim to stimulate further research on ACAM more broadly, encompassing advanced meditation including meditative development and meditative endpoints. Studying advanced meditation including ACAM, and specific practices such as ACAM-J, can potentially revolutionize our understanding of consciousness and applications for mental health.
... Reliable neural maps enabled by ENIGMA-Meditation may help to identify and harmonize common constructs across varied meditation practices and states by exploring their subjective, cultural, semantic and conceptual pluralities (9,115,116). For example, compassion, empathy, meta-awareness, equanimity, bliss, non-duality, and decentering among others are often considered essential outcomes, phenomenological dimensions and states across different meditation practices (9,14,114,(117)(118)(119)(120)(121). Statistically empowered participant-level mega-analyses from ENIGMA-Meditation can potentially illuminate some of the relationships between these phenomenological and neuroscientific dimensions. ...
Meditation is a family of ancient and contemporary contemplative mind-body practices that can modulate psychological processes, awareness, and mental states. Over the last 40 years, clinical science has manualised meditation practices and designed various meditation interventions (MIs), that have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders including depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety. Over the past decade, neuroimaging has examined the neuroscientific basis of meditation practices, effects, states, and outcomes for clinical and non-clinical populations. However, the generalizability and replicability of current neuroscientific models of meditation are yet to be established, as they are largely based on small datasets entrenched with heterogeneity along several domains of meditation (e.g., practice types, meditation experience, clinical disorder targeted), experimental design, and neuroimaging methods (e.g., preprocessing, analysis, task-based, resting-state, structural MRI). These limitations have precluded a nuanced and rigorous neuroscientific phenotyping of meditation practices and their potential benefits. Here, we present ENIGMA-Meditation, the first worldwide collaborative consortium for neuroscientific investigations of meditation practices. ENIGMA-Meditation will enable systematic meta- and mega-analyses of globally distributed neuroimaging datasets of meditation using shared, standardized neuroimaging methods and tools to improve statistical power and generalizability. Through this powerful collaborative framework, existing neuroscientific accounts of meditation practices can be extended to generate novel and rigorous neuroscientific insights, accounting for multi-domain heterogeneity. ENIGMA-Meditation will inform neuroscientific mechanisms underlying therapeutic action of meditation practices on psychological and cognitive attributes, advancing the field of meditation and contemplative neuroscience.
... The decentering skill allows us to separate thoughts and emotions from the sense of personal identity. It allows you to confront thoughts in a less threatening way, reducing the defensive response (Franquesa et al., 2017;Park & Pyszczynski, 2019). Higher scores indicate greater decentering (α pre = .703, ...
The self-centrality principle holds that contemplative practices activate self-salience, encouraging moral self-enhancement, rather than the expected effect of acceptance hypothesized by the ego-quieting principle (Gebauer et al., 2018). However, meditation may favor ego-quieting by inhibiting the disposition to judge and/or react to defend more equanimously a self that feels threatened (Brown et al., 2007). In this study, we propose that meditation helps to reduce behaviors based on self-interest by limiting the defensive sense of the ego when the self is salient. We carry out three experimental studies to test this proposal. The first one tests the effect of meditation on a salient self with a proximal threat to their physical survival (N = 400). The second study tests the effect of meditation in the case of distal defensiveness in a salient self whose physical survival is threatened (N = 200). The third study evaluates the effect of proximal defensiveness when the integrity of the self-concept of the salient self is threatened (N = 200). Our results provide evidence that practicing meditation quiets the ego, or tends to do so, when attention is focused on a self-threatened by a context based on a thought.
... This concept was highlighted in the qualitative statements of the participants responding to the items on the nonreact facet. This practice of decentering in turn lets the meditators in this study observe their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions with wider awareness, clarity, and objectivity, permitting them to choose and decide better in life situations (Franquesa et al., 2017). ...
Despite the interest in mindfulness research, there is a dearth of studies about mindfulness assessment in India. Particularly, little is known about the extent to which the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) represents content relevant for experienced meditators in Indian cultural and spiritual contexts. A sequential explanatory mixed-method design was used for this study. Six experienced meditators completed the standard FFMQ along with corresponding perceived importance items, followed by retrospective cognitive interviews. In addition to quantitative analysis related to reliability, content validity, and agreement, qualitative data from cognitive interviews were used to explore the reasons for high and low ratings of some items. Most of the items on the FFMQ facets act with awareness (75%), and nonreact (85.7%) were rated by all participants as being important. For 87.5% of the items in the describe facet, there was moderate agreement among the meditators regarding their importance. Only one out of eight items in each of the observe and nonjudge facets were rated as important by all participants. The qualitative statements supported the quantitative results by throwing some light on the reasons for high and low agreement. The observe and nonjudge facets were found to have questionable content validity for use with meditators in India who are non-Buddhist and also do not practice in mindfulness-based interventions contexts. Future psychometric work in India will need to explore to what extent a shortened version, excluding the low validity items of the FFMQ, may be a suitable alternative.
... They may have been able to express more positive emotions as a result. This process could be key to developing better emotion regulation skills, emotional resilience (Raphiphatthana et al., 2018), and healthy mental states (Dunne et al., 2019), leading to better life fulfillment and valued living (Franquesa et al., 2017). However, because this relationship was not reliable after correcting for multiple comparisons, perhaps due to reduced power given the number of writing samples that did not meet our inclusion criteria, it should be rigorously tested in future research. ...
... Individuals who can observe and understand this would not judge or over-identify with their emotions. This study offers preliminary evidence that observing and describing thoughts without judgment may protect against maladaptive outcomes (Franquesa et al., 2017). Persons who can observe and describe thoughts without judgment accept experiences as they are and do not compare them to expectations. ...
Objectives
Free-moving thoughts can have profound implications on how an individual interacts with the world, as well as their sense of self—sometimes maladaptively so. Previous research has suggested that mindfulness allows one to better detect the contents of the mind and thus prevent rumination on negative thoughts, but the association between mindfulness and free-moving thought dynamics is still unknown. In this study, we examined the relationship between trait mindfulness and free-moving thought dynamics.
Method
One hundred and twenty-three participants between 18 and 50 years old (M = 19.59, SD = 3.34 years) completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the free association semantic task (FAST), and rated the valence, arousal, and dominance of each generated word in the FAST. Zero–one inflated beta (ZOIB) regressions were used to analyze the relationship between trait mindfulness and thought transitions.
Results
Several components of the FFMQ predicted affective qualities of participants’ free-moving thoughts. Act-awareness and non-judgment significantly predicted the likelihood of transitioning from a low to high affective valence. Act-awareness, observing, and describing were also significant predictors of transitioning from a high to low affective valence. Finally, act-awareness was a significant predictor of switching from a high to low arousal state, while observing was a significant predictor of switching from high to low dominance.
Conclusions
Our study revealed that the use of the FAST could identify nuances in dynamics of free-moving thoughts and is associated with dimensions of trait mindfulness. Moreover, the use of ZOIB regression modeling demonstrates its feasibility for use with data bounded by values between 0 and 1.
Preregistration
This study is not preregistered.
... Participants completed an online assessment protocol. Complementary information about this research can be found in its main publication (Franquesa et al., 2017). Sample 2 participants underwent a 1-month Vipassana meditation retreat organized by a master's degree course in mindfulness in the University of Zaragoza (Spain). ...
Objectives
The Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS) and the State Mindfulness Scale (SMS) are two relevant self-report measures of state mindfulness. The purpose of this study was to examine the internal structure and to offer evidence of the reliability and validity of the Spanish versions of the TMS and SMS.
Methods
Data from six distinct non-clinical samples in Spain were obtained. They responded to the TMS (n = 119), SMS (n = 223), and measures of trait mindfulness, decentering, non-attachment, depression, anxiety, stress, positive and negative affect, self-criticism, and self-reassurance. The internal structure of the TMS and SMS was analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability, construct validity, and sensitivity to change analyses were performed.
Results
The correlated two-factor structure (curiosity and decentering) was the best-fitting model for the TMS (CFI = 0.932; TLI = 0.913; RMSEA = 0.100 [0.077–0.123]; WRMR = 0.908). The bifactor structure (general factor, mindfulness of body, and mindfulness of mind) was the best-fitting model for the SMS (CFI = 0.961; TLI = 0.950; RMSEA = 0.096 [0.086–0.106]; WRMR = 0.993). Adequate reliability was found for both measures. The reliability of the SMS specific factors was very poor when controlling for the general factor. The patterns of correlations were mainly as expected and according to previous literature. The TMS and SMS have been able to detect state mindfulness changes after different meditation practices.
Conclusion
Validity evidence is provided to support the use of the TMS and SMS in Spanish populations, though the reliability of the SMS specific factors merit revision.