Despite understanding the concept of mindfulness, people are applying it incorrectly, research finds

Date:
November 8, 2021
Source:
University of Waterloo
Summary:
Mindful awareness is about both accepting and engaging with life's
challenges, and that's what popularized concepts of mindfulness
tend to miss, new research has found.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Mindful awareness is about both accepting and engaging with life's
challenges, and that's what popularized concepts of mindfulness tend to
miss, new research has found.


========================================================================== Studying popular concepts of mindfulness, the researchers found most
laypeople are confusing the practice with passive acceptance of problem
-- a misconception scientists say ignores the important work of engaging
with them.

Originating in Buddhist religious practice, much of the mindfulness
movement's popularity grew from clinical research affirming its potential
for reducing stress and related health disorders.

"Scientific understanding of mindfulness goes beyond mere stress-relief
and requires a willingness to engage with stressors," said Igor Grossmann, corresponding author of the project and a professor of social psychology
at Waterloo. "It is, in fact, the engagement with stressors that
ultimately results in stress relief. More specifically, mindfulness
includes two main dimensions: awareness and acceptance." Grossmann
and colleagues compared critics' claims to popular interpretations of mindfulness to evaluate how people understand and apply the concept in
their daily lives. They found that in practice, most people conflate
acceptance with passivity or avoidance.

The research team conducted an extensive empirical project that examined
the meaning of mindfulness in three parts: analyses of the semantic
meaning of the term mindfulness in the English language, meta-analysis of
the results from a widely used mindfulness measure, and empirical tests
of association with markers of wisdom and effective emotion regulation.

"While we found that people seem to conceptually understand that
mindfulness involves engagement, the general public is not walking the
talk. Our results suggest that laypeople may understand what awareness is,
but the next step of acceptance may not be well understood -- limiting potential for engaging with problems," said Ellen Choi, lead author
on the paper and an assistant professor of organizational behaviour at
Ryerson University.

Using social media as a topical example, Grossmann says that with
algorithms curating increasingly hateful content, the ability to be
mindful of others' perspectives has never been more critical. "Mindfulness might not provide an easy answer to the divisiveness that surrounds us,
but an accurate understanding that includes the practice of acceptance may herald the re- emergence of sincere discussion and authentic connection." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Waterloo. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ellen Choi, Norman Farb, Ekaterina Pogrebtsova, Jamie Gruman, Igor
Grossmann. What do people mean when they talk about
mindfulness? Clinical Psychology Review, 2021; 89: 102085 DOI:
10.1016/j.cpr.2021.102085 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211108081645.htm

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