Displaying 1 - 4 of 4
Theories of mindfulness claim that a state of present-moment awareness enhances self-regulation in the presence of negative emotion. However, very little research has tested this claim in relation to daily stressors. This paper examined whether present-moment awareness during daily stressful events predicted enhanced responding to (a) the same day’s event, (b) a stressful event on the subsequent day and (c) stressful events on average, among a sample of adults (N = 143) over 20 days. We found support for these predictions, controlling for negative affect and stress-related appraisals. These novel findings extend the personality literature by showing that present-moment awareness facilitates adaptive stress-responses, independent of an individual’s affective state and the severity of threat experienced.
Self-determination theory (SDT) differentiates motivation, with autono- mous and controlled motivations constituting the key, broad distinction. Research has shown that autonomous motivation predicts persistence and adherence and is advantageous for effective performance, espe- cially on complex or heuristic tasks that involve deep information pro- cessing or creativity. Autonomous motivation is also reliably related to psychological health. Considerable research has found interpersonal contexts that facilitate satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness to enhance autonomous moti- vation, which comprises intrinsic motivation and well-internalized ex- trinsic motivation. SDT has been applied in varied cultures and in many life domains, and research is reviewed that has related autono- mous and controlled motivation to education, parenting, work, health care, sport, and close relationships.
Mindful individuals orient to ongoing events and experiences in a receptive, attentive manner. This experiential mode of processing suggests implications for the perception of and response to stress situations. Using laboratory-based, longitudinal, and daily diary designs, four studies examined the role of mindfulness on appraisals of and coping with stress experiences in college students, and the consequences of such stress processing for well-being. Across the four studies (n’s = 65 − 141), results demonstrated that mindful individuals made more benign stress appraisals, reported less frequent use of avoidant coping strategies, and in two studies, reported higher use of approach coping. In turn, more adaptive stress responses and coping partially or fully mediated the relation between mindfulness and well-being. Implications for the role of mindfulness in stress and well-being are discussed.
Research has associated financial desire discrepancies (the gap between current and desired states) with poorer subjective well-being (SWB). Because acquiring more wealth appears ineffective in decreasing financial desire discrepancies, we examined whether a theoretically meaningful psychological factor, termed mindfulness, would close the aspiration gap by ‘‘wanting what one has,” and thereby enhance SWB. Study 1 revealed that mindfulness was associated with a smaller financial desire discrepancy, which helped explain a positive association between mindfulness and SWB in undergraduates. Two fur- ther studies with working adults showed that these results occurred independently of financial status and changes therein. A final, quasi-experimental study with mindfulness trainees extended these find- ings. Reasons why mindfulness may help to promote the perception of having ‘‘enough” are discussed.