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Mindfulness Meditation Impairs Task Motivation but Not Performance
Abstract and Figures
A state of mindfulness is characterized by focused, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment. The current research experimentally investigated how state mindfulness influences task motivation and performance, using multiple meditation inductions, comparison conditions, tasks, and participant samples. Mindfulness inductions, relative to comparison conditions, reduced motivation to tackle mundane tasks (Experiments 1-4) and pleasant tasks (Experiment 2). Decreased future focus and decreased arousal serially mediated the demotivating effect of mindfulness (Experiments 3 and 4). In contrast to changes in motivation, inducing a state of mindfulness did not affect task performance, as seen in all experiments but one (Experiments 2-5). Meta-analyses of motivation and performance experiments, including unreported findings (i.e., the file drawer), supported these conclusions. Experiment 5’s serial mediation showed that mindfulness enabled people to detach from stressors, which improved task focus. When combined with mindfulness’s demotivating effects, these results help explain why mindfulness does not alter performance.
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... In addition, studies have identified a link between mindfulness and overall job performance (Dane and Brummel, 2014;Lyddy and Good, 2017). Other research suggests that workplace mindfulness interventions can improve task performance (Pang and Ruch, 2019) as well as task motivation and focus (Hafenbrack and Vohs, 2018;Reb et al., 2017;Hyland et al., 2015). ...
... intentional actions or decisions) and its relationship with work performance. This article argues that mindfulness is indeed linked to work performance (Cheung et al., 2020;Dane and Brummel, 2014;Forjan et al., 2020;Hafenbrack and Vohs, 2018;Lyddy and Good, 2017;Pang and Ruch, 2019). In addition, research on workplace mindfulness suggests that everyday mindfulness can be intentionally cultivated or experienced in the workplace (Cigolla and Brown, 2011;Forjan et al., 2020;Hulsheger et al., 2018;Irving et al., 2014;Jamieson and Tuckey, 2017;Lyddy and Good, 2017). ...
... This article examines these concerns in light of current workplace mindfulness literature, providing empirical evidence of mindfulness connection to work and task performance (e.g. Cheung et al., 2020;Dane and Brummel, 2014;Forjan et al., 2020;Hafenbrack and Vohs, 2018) and its intentional cultivation in the workplace (Cigolla and Brown, 2011;Forjan et al., 2020;Hulsheger et al., 2018;Irving et al., 2014;Jamieson and Tuckey, 2017;Lyddy and Good, 2017). In addition, mindfulness practices, such as loving-kindness and compassion, involve a positive appraisal of circumstances and success possibilities (Grossman and Van Dam, 2011;Hofmann et al., 2011;Hopkins, 2001;Salzberg, 1995Salzberg, , 2011The Dalai Lama, 2001), suggesting that mindfulness could be considered a potential PsyCap within POB, alongside hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the existing literature on workplace mindfulness and suggest positive organizational behavior (POB) scholarship as a suitable domain to understand the scientific and secular nature of mindfulness.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper is based on the critical analysis of the literature on POB and contemporary mindfulness at work. This paper highlights the limitations of workplace mindfulness in terms of its research and practice. Then, the limitations of workplace mindfulness are analyzed in relation to POB scholarship to suggest a way forward for research and practice.
Findings
The findings imply that contemporary mindfulness meets the inclusion criteria of psychological capital and thus it can be adopted and investigated in the workplace using the POB scholarship.
Practical implications
It suggests implications for research and practice by considering mindfulness as a psychological capital construct in the workplace context.
Originality/value
Mindfulness is an interesting topic for organizational researchers, and many organizations are adopting mindfulness to improve their workplace functioning. In recent years, scholars have highlighted potential ethical issues with the adoption of the spiritual and religious nature of mindfulness for workplace benefits. In this regard, the understanding of the scientific and secular nature of mindfulness is limited in organizational literature. This paper advances the knowledge of the literature on contemporary mindfulness and POB and argues the importance of the inclusion of mindfulness in psychological capital.
... Despite the body of evidence suggesting that mindfulness increases prosocial outcomes, some research indicates that the associations between mindfulness and social outcomes are unclear (Berryman et al., 2023;Kreplin et al., 2018) or even negative (Corbi et al., 2024;Hafenbrack et al., 2022;Hafenbrack & Vohs, 2018;Xie et al., 2023). Various explanations have been proposed for these divergent results, with some empirical support: it is possible that mindfulness affects certain types of prosocial behavior but not others (Berry et al., 2020), that different facets of mindfulness might have different associations with prosocial outcomes (Kil et al., 2021), or that different study designs yield different results (Nyklíček et al., 2024). ...
... For example, state mindfulness increases motivated attention to stimuli but trait mindfulness does not (Egan et al., 2018) and state and trait mindfulness have different associations with physical activity (Tsafou et al., 2017). Moreover, although experimental inductions of state mindfulness appear to decrease task-specific arousal (Hafenbrack & Vohs, 2018), people's free choices to engage in meditation practice during work breaks, which may reflect trait mindfulness, are associated with subjective vitality (Fritz et al., 2011). In summary, there is no reason to assume that effects found for state mindfulness should also be there for trait mindfulness, and trait mindfulness is much more long-lasting and thus important to understand. ...
... For example, our findings are highly consistent with the hypothesis that mindfulness increases self-awareness, but this mechanism was not assessed in our research. Our findings may also be consistent with the possibility that mindfulness decreases task-specific arousal (Hafenbrack & Vohs, 2018), which was also not assessed. However, this mechanism on its own, or in combination with increased self-awareness, could make undesirable and effortful actions such as stuffing envelopes especially unappealing for persons who tend to view their own needs as separate from others. ...
Objectives
Trait mindfulness is associated with many measures of individual well-being, but its relationship to prosocial behavior is less clear. Prior research found that a brief intervention boosting state mindfulness led to increased prosocial behaviors among individuals with interdependent self-construals, but decreased prosocial behaviors among individuals with independent self-construals. The present research sought to examine trait mindfulness and prosocial behavior and to examine the moderating roles of both horizontal and vertical interdependence.
Methods
Participants (n = 149) came to a lab and read about a charitable cause. They then had the opportunity to stuff envelopes on behalf of a fundraising appeal for that cause. Previously, outside of the lab, participants had completed measures of trait mindfulness, self-construal, and individualism-collectivism.
Results
Trait mindfulness predicted increased helping behavior in the form of stuffing envelopes among people high in collective interdependent self-construal and among those low in horizontal or vertical individualism.
Conclusions
Findings suggest that trait mindfulness can predict either greater or lesser prosocial behavior depending on people's preexisting social goals and identities, and that this pattern is not limited to vertical individualism.
Preregistration
This study is not preregistered.
... This finding confirms (Khan and Abbas 2022) that a stronger level of mindfulness can bring forth individual's creative performance. On the other hand, it contradicts to the findings of Hafenbrack and Vohs (2018), who elucidated that there is no any positive and significant association between mindfulness and task performance. There are several reasons why the relationship between students' mindfulness and academic performance is positive and significant. ...
In nowadays competitive environment, academic performance has become an indispensable need for the survival of university students as well as for higher educational institutions (HEIs). In response to this crucial situation, the current research focuses on investigating the role of students’ cognitive and behavioral factors, namely mindfulness (MFN), subjective wellbeing (SWB), and students’ music engagement (ME) in their academic performance. This research highlights the mediating role of students’ subjective wellbeing between mindfulness and their academic performance (APE) pathways. In addition, this study examines the moderating and moderated-mediation effects of students’ music engagement on the relationship amongst their mindfulness, SWB and academic performance, respectively. The target sample of this study was university students studying in a set of Chinese universities, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the proposed hypotheses and theoretical model. The results indicated that mindfulness positively and significantly influence students’ SWB and academic performance. Furthermore, students’ subjective wellbeing partially mediates the relationship between mindfulness and academic performance. Moreover, surprisingly, the outcomes reveal that students’ ME does not moderate mindfulness—SWB relationship, whereas it positively and significantly moderates the relationship between SWB and students’ academic performance. Besides, the most interesting result was empirical evidence of the moderated-mediation effect of students’ music engagement on the relationship amongst their mindfulness, subjective wellbeing and academic performance, which is significant. Hence, these outcomes propose imperative directions for the leadership of HEIs by suggesting different ways to strengthen academic performance among university students through reinforcing their behavioral and cognitive factors.
... In a longitudinal study of students who declared three goals at the beginning of the semester and were asked two months later how easy and natural it was to achieve them, it was found that goals perceived as consistent with their own values were achieved more effectively and effortlessly (Werner et al., 2016). Thus, both training and autonomous goals reduce the need of effortful self-control, mainly by reducing arousal (Hafenbrack & Vohs, 2018). They enhance the intuitive ability to regulate affect, which in itself contributes to the effective linking of intention and action (Friederichs et al., 2023). ...
The harmonious transition from intention to action is a positive experience associated with a sense of authorship over one’s own actions. Its opposite is the presence of an internal control that ensures action. According to the assumptions of self-determination theory, a person’s development is aimed at achieving harmony between intention and action. This constitutes autonomy, the second key element of which is self-reflection. The results of our study conducted on a sample of 778 people do not support the content-focused concept of autonomy. Based on the literature on self-regulation, we assumed that the transition from intention to action might be related to the anxiety, pride, curiosity and compassion. The results of our study confirm these expectations and suggest that a structural approach may offer a better understanding of the transition form intention to action than a content theory, thus providing a theoretical framework for practical solutions.
... Кроме того, медитация может снижать мотивацию к выполнению рутинных и приятных задач, в то же время не ухудшая производительность [65]. ...
Contemplative practices are a wide range of techniques originating from contemplative traditions, incorporating mindfulness, self-regulation and / or self-awareness, embodiment, breathwork, movement-based, and dialogic exercises, and aiming to alter cognitive and emotional processes. Being a part of contemplative practices mindfulness represents one of the fastest growing areas of psychological research and practice. Evidence shows that mindfulness is effective in improving a wide range of biopsychosocial conditions in business, health, and education. The emergence of data on the effectiveness of mindfulness has led to the development of programs and interventions that utilize mindfulness and contemplative practices. In the Russian-speaking scientific community, however, contemplative practices are under-researched. In the field of mindfulness and contemplative practices in whole, there remain some current issues. Although considerable scholarly interest exists, research has largely focused on a narrow range of methods and traditions. Also, in the field of mindfulness, there are a number of important factors that reduce its effectiveness. These include the use of poor methodology, limited samples, insufficient consideration of religious and cultural context, the factor of trauma-informed practice, and the possible negative effects. The article discusses contemplative practices, their prevalence, and challenges, as well as gaps and trends in contemplative studies. Factors complicating the application and possible negative effects of contemplative practices in psychological care and counseling are presented. A perspective on contemporary contemplative interventions is outlined.
Teams often experience negative affective states during the execution of innovative tasks. Negative group affective tone does not necessarily lead to unfavorable outcomes. Grounded in the theories of affect-as-information and mindfulness, this study proposes that team mindfulness nonlinearly moderates the relationship between negative group affective tone and team innovation through the mechanism of external knowledge acquisition. Data collected from 62 research and development teams were analyzed to test the proposed hypotheses. The empirical findings support our hypotheses. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
In recent years, organizations have been incorporating gamification elements and techniques into security compliance training, and research has shown positive outcomes resulting from using gamification in security compliance training. However, research has focused on training using game elements within one-time (or periodic) dedicated training sessions, where training occurs outside an employee's regular work context. Consequently, even if gamified, this ''away from the actual job'' approach may limit the ability to readily draw on earlier training and stay vigilant against phishing attacks once he/she returns to normal job duties. Contrasted with the approach used in prior research, this study proposes mixing gamified security training with the reality of day-to-day work activities, which we call quasi-mixed reality in gamified security training. Specifically, the security training proposed in this study is a several-week-long program that takes place in employees' regular work context while they perform their everyday job tasks. In a randomized field experiment, we find that employees who were randomly assigned to experience quasi-mixed reality in gamified phishing training performed better in detecting and avoiding phishing attacks than those who were assigned to a control group. In addition, we propose and articulate mindfulness of phishing as a psychological mechanism and develop a path model based on mindfulness of phishing to provide insights into how the quasi-mixed reality gamified phishing training improves employee behavior regarding phishing detection and avoidance.
Social scientists and practitioners alike, so far, assume that leader mindfulness is inherently beneficial while paying limited attention to its potential drawbacks. Drawing upon social information processing theory, we contend that leader mindfulness is a mixed blessing as it relates to follower creativity. Using two multi‐wave, multi‐source field studies, our findings indicate a negative relationship between leader mindfulness and leader–follower dyadic affective conflict, which in turn increases follower creativity. However, leader mindfulness has a negative relationship with leader–follower dyadic cognitive conflict, resulting in decreased follower creativity. Further, perceived leaders' organizational embodiment strengthens the positive indirect effect of leader mindfulness on follower creativity through leader–follower dyadic affective conflict, whereasperceived leaders' organizational embodiment does not moderate the indirect effect through leader–follower dyadic cognitive conflict. Theoretical and practical insights regarding leader mindfulness and follower creativity are discussed.
Because of the unprecedented pace of globalization, foreign experiences are increasingly common and valued. Past research has focused on the benefits of foreign experiences, including enhanced creativity and reduced intergroup bias. In contrast, the present work uncovers a potential dark side of foreign experiences: increased immoral behavior. We propose that broad foreign experiences (i.e., experiences in multiple foreign countries) foster not only cognitive flexibility but also moral flexibility. Using multiple methods (longitudinal, correlational, and experimental), 8 studies (N Ͼ 2,200) establish that broad foreign experiences can lead to immoral behavior by increasing moral relativism-the belief that morality is relative rather than absolute. The relationship between broad foreign experiences and immoral behavior was robust across a variety of cultural populations (anglophone, francophone), life stages (high school students, university students, MBA students, middle-aged adults), and 7 different measures of immorality. As individuals are exposed to diverse cultures, their moral compass may lose some of its precision.
While previous work on mindfulness has focused predominantly on the benefits of mindfulness and of mindfulness interventions, the present article addresses the question of how natural experiences of mindfulness can be promoted in the context of work. Accordingly, this article sheds light on day‐to‐day fluctuations in workload and recovery experiences (psychological detachment and sleep quality) as antecedents of state mindfulness. Furthermore, this study extends extant research that has documented beneficial effects of mindfulness on subsequent recovery experiences by arguing that the relationship between mindfulness and recovery experiences is reciprocal rather than unidirectional. Using an experience‐sampling design across five workdays and involving three daily measurement occasions, we found that sleep quality and workload were related to subsequent levels of mindfulness. While not displaying a significant direct relationship with mindfulness, psychological detachment was indirectly related to mindfulness via sleep quality. Fatigue was identified as an important mechanism explaining these relationships. Furthermore, findings confirmed that the relationship between mindfulness and recovery experiences is reciprocal rather than unidirectional. Taken together, this study contributes to an enriched understanding of the role of mindfulness in organizations by shedding light on factors that precede the experience of mindfulness and by pointing to the existence of gain spirals associated with recovery experiences and mindfulness.
Practitioner points
Organizations seeking to promote mindfulness among their workforce should try to keep workload to a manageable degree.
Organizations may also pay attention to care for employees' day‐to‐day recovery as it has been shown to facilitate mindfulness.
A brief breathing exercise designed to induce a mindful state could benefit reading comprehension performance, but has not been previously examined. Furthermore, the mechanisms of how an induced mindful state benefits cognition are not well understood. The purposes of this study are to test the effectiveness of a brief mindful breathing exercise on reading comprehension performance and examine two potential mechanisms (mind wandering and stress reduction). Undergraduate students (N = 104) engaged in either a mindful breathing exercise or control sham exercise, indicated their stress levels, and completed a reading comprehension assessment during which they self-reported their mind wandering. The mindful breathing exercise benefited performance, but the mechanisms for this benefit were not mind wandering or stress reduction.
The dangers of mindless behaviors remain better defined than their remedies. Even as mindfulness becomes increasingly prevalent, we lack clarity on three key questions: What is mindfulness? How does mindfulness training operate? And why might mindfulness matter for organizations? In this article, I introduce a new conceptualization of mindfulness called metacognitive practice. Metacognitive practice is so-named because it blends insights from metacognition and practice theory to answer these three key questions. First, when seen as metacognitive practice, mindfulness is not a single mode of information processing to be applied in all situations. Instead, mindfulness is a metacognitive process by which people adjust their mode of information processing to their current situation. Second, this metacognitive process is made possible by three specific beliefs that supersede lay beliefs about human information processing. A core function of mindfulness training is thus to provide a context that cultivates these beliefs. And third, when these beliefs are put into practice, people gain greater agency in how they respond to situations. This matters for organizations because as people interrelate their individual actions into a collective response, metacognitive practice can get embedded in amplifying processes that transform the organization—or in fragmentation processes that threaten it.
The present research investigates whether close intercultural relationships promote creativity, workplace innovation, and entrepreneurship—outcomes vital to individual and organizational success. We triangulate on these questions with multiple methods (longitudinal, experimental, and field studies), diverse population samples (MBA students, employees, and professional repatriates), and both laboratory and real-world measures. Using a longitudinal design over a ten-month MBA program, Study 1 found that intercultural dating predicted improved creative performance on both divergent and convergent thinking tasks. Using an experimental design, Study 2 established the causal connection between intercultural dating and creativity: Among participants who had previously had both intercultural and intra-cultural dating experiences, those who reflected on an intercultural dating experience displayed higher creativity compared to those who reflected on an intra-cultural dating experience. Importantly, cultural learning mediated this effect. Extending the first two studies, Study 3 revealed that the duration of past intercultural romantic relationships positively predicted the ability of current employees to generate creative names for marketing products, but the number of past intercultural romantic partners did not. In Study 4, we analyzed an original dataset of 2,226 professional repatriates from 96 countries who had previously worked in the U.S. under J-1 visas: Participants’ frequency of contact with American friends since returning to their home countries positively predicted their workplace innovation and likelihood of becoming entrepreneurs. Going out with a close friend or romantic partner from a foreign culture can help people “go out” of the box and into a creative frame of mind.
The authors introduce the concept of team mindfulness, defined as a shared belief among team members that their interactions are characterized by awareness and attention to present events, and experiential, non-judgmental processing of within-team experiences. Team mindfulness is examined as a safeguard against multilevel team conflict transformation processes. Results from three multi-wave field studies validate a team mindfulness instrument and indicate that team mindfulness: 1) negatively relates to team relationship conflict; 2) reduces the connection between task conflict and relationship conflict at the team level; and 3) reduces the cross-level spillover of team relationship conflict to individual social undermining. The research contributes to the growing workplace mindfulness literature by conceptualizing mindfulness at the team-level, and demonstrating its positive effects for team functioning. The results also contribute to research on team conflict and social undermining, showing that team mindfulness is a promising intervention to reduce team conflict and its ill effects. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
In today's organizations interdependent tasks (e.g. negotiations or group-decision makings) are often conducted with computer mediation. Two experiments examined whether mindfulness, known to improve face to face negotiations and decision makings, influences the performance in computer-mediated interdependent tasks. In Study 1, manipulated mindfulness led to a worse outcome in a simulated computer-mediated negotiation compared to a control group. In Study 2, induced mindfulness undermined the decision performance of dyads interacting via text-based computer-mediated communication compared to a no-mindfulness control group. At the same time attention to the social relation was higher in the mindfulness condition. Hence, mindfulness is detrimental to performing on interdependent tasks if interaction partners use it in computer-mediated communication, although it fosters attention to interpersonal relations. Implications for mindfulness research and for research on computer-mediated communication are discussed.
