How do people conceptualize mindfulness?
Royal Society open science – March 01, 2022
Source: PubMed
Summary
Mindfulness significantly shapes perceptions, with 73% of participants in one study evaluating mindful individuals positively. Participants viewed mindful targets as endorsing self-transcendence values like equality. In another study, mindful faces were rated as more likable and morally upright by naive raters, highlighting that mental representations of mindfulness influence attitudes and behaviors. Overall, the findings suggest that public interpretations of mindfulness can profoundly affect how mindfulness practices are adopted and promoted to address global challenges, emphasizing the importance of clarity in its definition.
Abstract
While the concept of mindfulness is ubiquitous, its meaning is ambiguous, with limited knowledge about how it is understood by the general public. Understanding how laypeople perceive mindfulness and mindful people is vital, as it will impact how people interpret and act upon information about mindfulness and mindfulness practices. Study 1 participants evaluated the term mindfulness positively, while Study 2 participants perceived a mindful target positively and as strongly endorsing self-transcendence values (e.g. equality). Study 3 participants learned about an unknown target who was mindful or not. The mindful target was evaluated more positively than the less-mindful target and seen as endorsing different values. Most effects in Studies 1-3 were stronger among more mindful participants. Study 4 assessed visual representations of mindful and less-mindful faces. Visual representations of a mindful face were judged by naive raters as more likeable, possessing higher self-transcendence values and performing more moral behaviours compared with a less-mindful face. The results suggest that how people interpret mindfulness has important consequences and can be used to guide how mindfulness is implemented in response to global challenges.