Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
March 1, 2025
Simon B Goldberg, Ashley D Kendall, Matthew J Hirshberg et al.
15 citations
In a randomized controlled trial of a meditation app with 662 participants (80.4% had elevated depression or anxiety), the relationship between how much people used the app (dosage) and changes in psychological distress was inconsistent. Across 41 different statistical models, some showed that more use—measured in minutes, days, or activities completed—was linked to greater reductions in distress, but many models found no such link, and a few even suggested the opposite pattern. This variability highlights the challenge of defining and studying dosage in meditation app interventions and points to the need for careful, transparent methods in this area.
Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
January 1, 2025
Matthew J Hirshberg, Cortland J Dahl, Daniel Bolt et al.
9 citations
A four-week smartphone-based meditation intervention reduced psychological distress in adults, most of whom had clinical anxiety or depressive symptoms during the early COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention improved four proposed mediators—mindful action, loneliness, cognitive defusion, and purpose—which together accounted for 21.9% to 62.5% of the effect on distress at three-month follow-up. In a multiple mediator analysis, reduced loneliness alone explained 61.7% of the combined indirect effect. The findings suggest multiple psychological pathways may mediate distress reduction in digital meditation-based interventions.
Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
June 20, 2017
Vaughan Bell, K. Mills, G. Modinos et al.
A debate about how to study psychosis in cognitive science is addressed. The authors agree with critics that the subjective experience of psychosis, especially the presence of illusory social agents, cannot be reduced to simple cognitive errors. They argue that current social-cognition models neglect this central phenomenological feature. They propose that research should also examine how social agents are represented and deployed, not just how social information is processed. They suggest that intersubjective instability in psychosis may be reorganized into illusory social agents as a best-fit explanation, a hypothesis for future study. They advocate for a phenomenologically informed cognitive science to better understand psychosis.