<p>Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE for Teachers) is a mindfulness-based professional development program designed to reduce stress and improve teachers’ performance and classroom learning environments. A randomized controlled trial examined program efficacy and acceptability among a sample of 50 teachers randomly assigned to CARE or waitlist control condition. Participants completed a battery of self-report measures at pre- and postintervention to assess the impact of the CARE program on general well-being, efficacy, burnout/time pressure, and mindfulness. Participants in the CARE group completed an evaluation of the program after completing the intervention. ANCOVAs were computed between the CARE group and control group for each outcome, and the pretest scores served as a covariate. Participation in the CARE program resulted in significant improvements in teacher well-being, efficacy, burnout/time-related stress, and mindfulness compared with controls. Evaluation data showed that teachers viewed CARE as a feasible, acceptable, and effective method for reducing stress and improving performance. Results suggest that the CARE program has promise to support teachers working in challenging settings and consequently improve classroom environments.</p>
Zotero Collections:
High school students' self-esteem and locus of control were evaluated before, during, and after exposure to either a health curriculum based on elicitation of the relaxation-response with follow-up or a control health curriculum followed by the relaxation-response. The experimental group significantly increased self-esteem and internal locus of control. (SM)
Zotero Collections:
<p>Several recent studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during recognition memory tests have suggested that the ability to neuromodulate as a function of cognitive demand may be impaired in older adults due to age-related cell loss and neural volume reduction in memory specific regions. In the current study, older adults (ages 59-77) were tested with fMRI during a delayed-recognition task in which memory load for faces was varied across trials. Activity was greater in amplitude for three- versus one-face stimuli within the superior, middle, and inferior frontal gyri, intraparietal sulcus, and fusiform gyrus. It was concluded that the ability to modulate activity with increasing load is preserved in older adults despite reductions in neural volume.</p>
Zotero Collections:
<p>This dissertation examines the development of theories about meditative practices and their soteriological goals in Indian Buddhist thought. It traces this development from the earliest stage accessible to us as far as the systematizations of Asanga and Vasubandhu in the fifth century AD. The first two chapters apply the techniques of form-criticism to the first four Nikayas of the Pali canon in an attempt to isolate the types of meditative technique described in this literature. The preliminary attempts at systematization in the Samannaphalasutta and Mahasatipatthanasutta are subjected to detailed analysis. It is found that a wide variety of techniques are recommended in this literature, that these techniques cannot easily be combined into a coherent system of soteriological practice, and that the attempts to so combine them in the Nikayas are frequently inconsistent with each other. The third chapter analyzes in detail Vasubandhu's contribution to this issue as seen in the path-structure set forth in the Abhidharmakosabhasya. Substantial sections of that work are translated, together with the commentaries of Yasomitra and Sthiramati. The fourth chapter analyzes the margasatya section of Asanga's Abhidharmasamuccaya, and gives a complete edition and translation of this section of the work, together with its bhasya, based on the surviving Sanskrit fragments and the Tibetan translation. It is found that the attempts of Asanga and Vasubandhu to resolve the tensions uncovered in the first two chapters are neither fully successful nor compatible with one another. The fifth chapter relates the findings of the first four chapters to current psychological research on the effects of meditative techniques, and discusses in outline the epistemological implications of these findings. It is found that the tensions apparent in the Buddhist texts are reflected in large part by the empirical findings of psychological studies, and that the epistemological implications of these findings have not been properly understood, either by Buddhist philosophers or contemporary psychological theorists.</p>
Zotero Collections:
Noninvasive recordings of electrical and magnetic fields generated by neuronal activity have helped to characterize the temporal sequencing and mechanisms underlying human cognition. Progress is being made toward the goal of localizing the intracranial loci at which many important electromagnetic signals are generated through the use of new analytic techniques and of scalp recordings of electromagnetic activity in neurological patients and through related work in animals. Such methods alone, however, do not yet have the three-dimensional spatial resolution that is necessary in order to identify the intracranial anatomical structures that are involved in the generation of externally recorded activity and, thus, cannot yet inform us with precision about the anatomical substrates of neural events. In comparison, neuroimaging methods, such as positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging, can provide higher spatial resolution information about which brain structures are involved in perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes. However, these imaging methods do not yield much information about the time course of brain activity. One promising approach is to combine electromagnetic recordings and functional neuroimaging in order to gain knowledge about the spatiotemporal organization of human cognition. Here we review how electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging can be combined in the study of attention in normal humans.
Zotero Collections:
<p>As the field of psychology continues to expand and evolve, one fruitful avenue of exploration has been the integration of mindfulness into psychological theory and practice. Mindfulness is defined as the awareness that arises out of intentionally attending in an open and discerning way to whatever is arising in the present moment. Two decades of empirical research have generated considerable evidence supporting the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions across a wide range of clinical and nonclinical populations, and these interventions have been incorporated into a variety of health care settings. Still, there are many unanswered questions and potential horizons to be investigated. This special issue endeavors to assist in this exploration. It presents a combination of articles concerning aspects of clinical and scientific integration of mindfulness within psychotherapy and psychoeducational settings. This commentary attempts to highlight the main findings of the featured articles as well as elucidate areas for future inquiry. Taken as a whole, the volume supports the importance and viability of the integration of mindfulness into psychology, and offers interesting and meaningful directions for future research. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 65: 1–6, 2009.</p>
Zotero Collections:
As the field of psychology continues to expand and evolve, one fruitful avenue of exploration has been the integration of mindfulness into psychological theory and practice. Mindfulness is defined as the awareness that arises out of intentionally attending in an open and discerning way to whatever is arising in the present moment. Two decades of empirical research have generated considerable evidence supporting the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions across a wide range of clinical and nonclinical populations, and these interventions have been incorporated into a variety of health care settings. Still, there are many unanswered questions and potential horizons to be investigated. This special issue endeavors to assist in this exploration. It presents a combination of articles concerning aspects of clinical and scientific integration of mindfulness within psychotherapy and psychoeducational settings. This commentary attempts to highlight the main findings of the featured articles as well as elucidate areas for future inquiry. Taken as a whole, the volume supports the importance and viability of the integration of mindfulness into psychology, and offers interesting and meaningful directions for future research.
<p>The present study was an exploratory investigation of a unique phenomenon: the traditional, Theravadin Buddhist meditation retreat. It is unique in the sense that such meditation retreats involve the constant practice of "concentration" and "insight" meditation techniques during every waking moment for periods of time up to 3 months. The following research questions derived from Buddhist sources and contemporary psychological theory and research, provided the major organizing framework of the study; (1) Are relationship factors, such as idealization, an important component of retreat experience? (2) In a Western, psychoanalytic sense, are the meditators characterized by a healthy sense of "narcissism" or self-love? (3) What is the nature of the meditators' self-concepts? (4) What are the effects of the meditation retreats on the participant's experience of self and world? All subjects were solicited, unpaid, volunteers recruited from the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) during the autumn and winter of 1979-80. The design of the study was naturalistic in the sense that it utilized the natural groupings of the IMS: the 3 month and 2 week meditation retreats. A total of 53 meditators completed the pre and post-retreat test packets: a sample of 20 subjects from the 3 month retreat and a pooled sample of 33 subjects from 3 different 2 week retreats. The self-administering test package included a Semantic Differential with 5 factor scales and 12 concepts, Knapp's Metaphor Scales (MS), and a Who-Are-You (WAY) test in addition to several less important measures. The data analysis was based on the interpretation of sample descriptive statistics, "Matched" T-tests, and analysis of covariance. As reflected by the WAY test, "Abstract" self-concepts predominated over "Role" and "Trait" self-descriptions, suggesting the meditators have an ideological commitment to the "anatta" (no-self) principle of Buddhism. Self-concepts were not significantly effected by either retreat experience. Comparison of the relative magnitude of the profile of semantic factor means for the concepts "Me" and "Your Meditation Instructor" documented that the relationship is an important factor in both types of meditation retreats. Both groups of meditators idealize their teachers, find them reliable and consistent, and experience them as emotionally rewarding. Among the 2 week sample, only, there is evidence that something akin to an "idealizing transference" (or perhaps a more general "positive transference") develops in relation to the teacher. Personality change among the meditators may be as much due to the relationship with the teacher as it is to the practice of meditation, per se. Judged in relation to 3 Western variables, derived from modern clinical theory, both samples appeared to have a healthy sense of "narcissism". These clinical variables seemed unaffected by the meditation retreats. However, important changes in the experience of self and world did occur among the 3 month sample. These results were consistent with Theravadin Buddhist theory. The self was perceived as more "non-reactive", suggesting an increased mastery of the "insight meditation" technique of "bare attention". The connotations of death changed, suggesting an increased appreciation of "anicca" (impermanence) and acceptance of the theory of reincarnation. The 3 month meditators come to reject a Western, romantic, interpersonal definition of love in favor of the Buddhist emphasis on an internally generated and maintained feeling state and stance of selfless, altruistic, "non-reactive", non-selective, compassion for the world. Finally, the 3 month retreat seemed to increase the participants' emotional detachment from and devaluation of Western attitudes concerning work and material strivings. Additional, but less important findings are reported in the body of the study.</p>
Zotero Collections:
- Buddhist Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Meditation Retreats,
- Psychology and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Science and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Community and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Practices of Buddhist Contemplation,
- Psychology and Contemplation,
- Science and Contemplation,
- Buddhist Contemplation
Zotero Collections:
Zotero Collections:
We discuss preliminary findings from a study that investigated the effectiveness of a Holistic Arts-Based Group Program (HAP) for the development of resilience in children in need. The HAP teaches mindfulness using arts-based methods, and aims to teach children how to understand their feelings and develop their strengths. We assessed the effectiveness of the HAP by using comparison and control groups, and standardized measures. We hypothesized that children who participated in the HAP would have better scores on resilience and self-concept compared with children who took part in an Arts and Crafts group (the comparison group), and children who were waiting to attend the HAP (the control group). A total of 36 children participated in the study; 20 boys aged 8–13 years and 16 girls aged 8–14 years. A mixed-designed MANOVA was conducted using scores from 21 participants. We found evidence that the HAP program was beneficial for the children in that they self-reported lower emotional reactivity (a resilience measure) post-intervention. No changes were noted for perceptions of self-concept. Consideration should be given to how we can attend to young people’s needs in relevant ways as resilience is a condition of a community’s ability to provide resources as much as it is part of an individual’s capacity for growth. Programs such as the HAP can engage children in a creative and meaningful process that is enjoyable and strengths-based.
Zotero Collections:
We investigated whether mindfulness training (MT) influences information processing in a working memory task with complex visual stimuli. Participants were tested before (T1) and after (T2) participation in an intensive one-month MT retreat, and their performance was compared with that of an age- and education-matched control group. Accuracy did not differ across groups at either time point. Response times were faster and significantly less variable in the MT versus the control group at T2. Since these results could be due to changes in mnemonic processes, speed-accuracy trade-off, or nondecisional factors (e.g., motor execution), we used a mathematical modeling approach to disentangle these factors. The EZ-diffusion model (Wagenmakers, van der Maas, & Grasman, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14:(1), 3-22, 2007) suggested that MT leads to improved information quality and reduced response conservativeness, with no changes in nondecisional factors. The noisy exemplar model further suggested that the increase in information quality reflected a decrease in encoding noise and not an increase in forgetting. Thus, mathematical modeling may help clarify the mechanisms by which MT produces salutary effects on performance.
Zotero Collections:
Zotero Collections:
Drawing on E. Goffman's concepts of face and strategic interaction, the authors define a tease as a playful provocation in which one person comments on something relevant to the target. This approach encompasses the diverse behaviors labeled teasing, clarifies previous ambiguities, differentiates teasing from related practices, and suggests how teasing can lead to hostile or affiliative outcomes. The authors then integrate studies of the content of teasing. Studies indicate that norm violations and conflict prompt teasing. With development, children tease in playful ways, particularly around the ages of 11 and 12 years, and understand and enjoy teasing more. Finally, consistent with hypotheses concerning contextual variation in face concerns, teasing is more frequent and hostile when initiated by high-status and familiar others and men, although gender differences are smaller than assumed. The authors conclude by discussing how teasing varies according to individual differences and culture.
Zotero Collections:
Zotero Collections:
Social contact promotes enhanced health and well-being, likely as a function of the social regulation of emotional responding in the face of various life stressors. For this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 16 married women were subjected to the threat of electric shock while holding their husband's hand, the hand of an anonymous male experimenter, or no hand at all. Results indicated a pervasive attenuation of activation in the neural systems supporting emotional and behavioral threat responses when the women held their husband's hand. A more limited attenuation of activation in these systems occurred when they held the hand of a stranger. Most strikingly, the effects of spousal hand-holding on neural threat responses varied as a function of marital quality, with higher marital quality predicting less threat-related neural activation in the right anterior insula, superior frontal gyrus, and hypothalamus during spousal, but not stranger, hand-holding.
Zotero Collections:
This paper briefly reviews the evidence for multistore theories of memory and points out some difficulties with the approach. An alternative framework for human memory research is then outlined in terms of depth or levels of processing. Some current data and arguments are reexamined in the light of this alternative framework and implications for further research considered.
Zotero Collections:
Zotero Collections:
Dozens of studies in different nations have revealed that socioeconomic status only weakly predicts an individual's subjective well-being (SWB). These results imply that although the pursuit of social status is a fundamental human motivation, achieving high status has little impact on one's SWB. However, we propose that sociometric status-the respect and admiration one has in face-to-face groups (e.g., among friends or coworkers)-has a stronger effect on SWB than does socioeconomic status. Using correlational, experimental, and longitudinal methodologies, four studies found consistent evidence for a local-ladder effect: Sociometric status significantly predicted satisfaction with life and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Longitudinally, as sociometric status rose or fell, SWB rose or fell accordingly. Furthermore, these effects were driven by feelings of power and social acceptance. Overall, individuals' sociometric status matters more to their SWB than does their socioeconomic status.
Zotero Collections:
On the basis of the proposition that love promotes commitment, the authors predicted that love would motivate approach, have a distinct signal, and correlate with commitment-enhancing processes when relationships are threatened. The authors studied romantic partners and adolescent opposite-sex friends during interactions that elicited love and threatened the bond. As expected, the experience of love correlated with approach-related states (desire, sympathy). Providing evidence for a nonverbal display of love, four affiliation cues (head nods, Duchenne smiles, gesticulation, forward leans) correlated with self-reports and partner estimates of love. Finally, the experience and display of love correlated with commitment-enhancing processes (e.g., constructive conflict resolution, perceived trust) when the relationship was threatened. Discussion focused on love, positive emotion, and relationships.
Zotero Collections:
Self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment and shame are associated with 2 aspects of theory of mind (ToM): (a) the ability to understand that behavior has social consequences in the eyes of others and (b) an understanding of social norms violations. The present study aimed to link ToM with the recognition of self-conscious emotion. Children with and without autism identified facial expressions conscious of self-conscious and non-self-conscious emotions from photographs. ToM was also measured. Children with autism performed more poorly than comparison children at identifying self-conscious emotions, though they did not differ in the recognition of non-self-conscious emotions. When ToM ability was statistically controlled, group differences in the recognition of self-conscious emotion disappeared. Discussion focused on the links between ToM and self-conscious emotion.
Zotero Collections:
A chief goal of this research was to determine whether stimuli and events known to enhance smoking motivation also influence a physiological variable with the potential to index approach motivation. Asymmetry of electroencephalographic (EEG) activity across the frontal regions of the 2 hemispheres (left minus right hemisphere activation) was used to index approach motivation. In theory, if EEG asymmetry sensitively indexes approach dispositions, it should be influenced by manipulations known to affect smoking motivation, that is, exposure to smoking cues and tobacco deprivation. Seventy-two smokers participated in this research and were selectively exposed to a smoking-anticipation condition (cigarettes plus expectation of imminent smoking) following either 24 hr of tobacco withdrawal or ad libitum smoking. Results indicated that EEG asymmetry was increased by smoking anticipation and that smoking itself reduced EEG asymmetry. Results also suggested that smoking anticipation increased overall (bihemispheric) EEG activation. Results were interpreted in terms of major theories of drug motivation.
Zotero Collections:
To better understand the neurobiological mechanisms by which mindfulness-based practices function in a psychotherapeutic context, this article details the definition, techniques, and purposes ascribed to mindfulness training as described by its Buddhist tradition of origin and by contemporary neurocognitive models. Included is theory of how maladaptive mental processes become habitual and automatic, both from the Buddhist and Western psychological perspective. Specific noting and labeling techniques in open monitoring meditation, described in the Theravada and Western contemporary traditions, are highlighted as providing unique access to multiple modalities of awareness. Potential explicit and implicit mechanisms are discussed by which such techniques can contribute to transforming maladaptive habits of mind and perceptual and cognitive biases, improving efficiency, facilitating integration, and providing the flexibility to switch between systems of self-processing. Finally, a model is provided to describe the timing by which noting and labeling practices have the potential to influence different stages of low- and high-level neural processing. Hypotheses are proposed concerning both levels of processing in relation to the extent of practice. Implications for the nature of subjective experience and self-processing as it relates to one's habits of mind, behavior, and relation to the external world, are also described.
Zotero Collections:
Patients in the placebo arms of randomized controlled trials (RCT) often experience positive changes from baseline. While multiple theories concerning such “placebo effects” exist, peculiarly, none has been informed by actual interviews of patients undergoing placebo treatment. Here, we report on a qualitative study (n = 27) embedded within a RCT (n = 262) in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Besides identical placebo acupuncture treatment in the RCT, the qualitative study patients also received an additional set of interviews at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the trial. Interviews of the 12 qualitative subjects who underwent and completed placebo treatment were transcribed. We found that patients (1) were persistently concerned with whether they were receiving placebo or genuine treatment; (2) almost never endorsed “expectation” of improvement but spoke of “hope” instead and frequently reported despair; (3) almost all reported improvement ranging from dramatic psychosocial changes to unambiguous, progressive symptom improvement to tentative impressions of benefit; and (4) often worried whether their improvement was due to normal fluctuations or placebo effects. The placebo treatment was a problematic perturbation that provided an opportunity to reconstruct the experiences of the fluctuations of their illness and how it disrupted their everyday life. Immersion in this RCT was a co-mingling of enactment, embodiment and interpretation involving ritual performance and evocative symbols, shifts in bodily sensations, symptoms, mood, daily life behaviors, and social interactions, all accompanied by self-scrutiny and re-appraisal. The placebo effect involved a spectrum of factors and any single theory of placebo—e.g. expectancy, hope, conditioning, anxiety reduction, report bias, symbolic work, narrative and embodiment—provides an inadequate model to explain its salubrious benefits.
Zotero Collections:
Multiple measures exist that examine the attentional aspects of meditation practice, but measurement of the compassion component is relatively understudied. This paper describes the development and initial validation of a scale designed to measure application of the four immeasurable qualities at the heart of Buddhist teachings: loving kindness, compassion, joy and acceptance toward both self and others. Our analyses suggest four distinct subscales: positive qualities toward self, positive qualities toward others, negative qualities toward self and negative qualities toward others. Initial examination of reliability and validity showed high internal consistency for the subscales as well as strong concurrent, discriminant, and construct validity. We believe the Self-Other Four Immeasurables (SOFI) scale has broad utility for research on mindfulness, positive psychology, and social psychology.
Zotero Collections:
Pages |