Behaviour Research and Therapy
August 10, 2026
Otto Simonsson, Christian A. Webb, Mini Ruiz et al.
Despite decades of meditation research, there is a lack of preregistered and well-powered studies that investigate the effects of brief meditation practices on subjective wellbeing and use data-driven approaches to predict response to these interventions. Using representative samples of the US and UK adult populations with regards to age, sex, and ethnicity (N = 5049), we conducted a...
Psychological services
July 10, 2025
Rachel L. Dyer, Katherine M Zimmerman, Xinxuyang Zhao et al.
2 citations
In recent decades, depression and anxiety have worsened among American adults. Meditation apps may provide an accessible route for reducing these symptoms. However, many users experience barriers to persisting in their use of these apps. Prior research has identified psychosocial and practical barriers and facilitators to the use of meditation apps, as well as barriers and facilitators related...
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
Despite growing popularity, associations between dosage and outcomes in meditation app interventions have not been established. We examined this relationship using a range of operationalizations of dosage (e.g., minutes of use, days of use, number and type of activities completed) and strategies for modeling outcomes (e.g., ordinary least squares regression, multilevel modeling, latent class...
Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
2025
Matthew J. Hirshberg, Cortland J. Dahl, Daniel M. Bolt et al.
9 citations
Understanding why interventions work is essential to optimizing them. Although mechanistic theories of meditation-based interventions (MBIs) exist, empirical evidence is limited. We randomly assigned 662 adults (79.9% reported clinical levels of anxiety or depressive symptoms) to a four-week smartphone-based MBI or wait-list control condition early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological...
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
August 1, 2024
Simon B. Goldberg, Daniel M. Bolt, Cortland J. Dahl et al.
5 citations
Meditation apps are the most widely used mental health apps. The precise mechanisms underlying their effects remain unclear. In particular, the degree to which affect experienced during meditation is associated with outcomes has not been established. We used the meditation app arm of a recently completed randomized controlled trial comparing a self-guided meditation app (Healthy Minds Program)...
Journal of Counseling Psychology
March 1, 2024
Kevin M. Riordan, Otto Simonsson, Corrina Frye et al.
12 citations
Meditation apps are the most commonly used mental health apps. However, the optimal dosing of app-delivered meditation practice has not been established. We examined whether the distribution of meditation practices across a day impacted outcomes in a distressed population. We investigated the effects of meditation practice frequency in a 2-week compassion-based meditation intervention delivered...
November 3, 2023
Qiang Xie, Rachel L. Dyer, Sin U Lam et al.
1 citation
preprint
Objectives: Informal practice (i.e., brief meditation practices incorporated spontaneously into daily activities) may be important for increasing the efficacy and accessibility of meditation-based interventions (MedBIs). However, the facilitators and barriers to engaging in informal practice are largely unknown. The current study aimed to investigate factors associated with the implementation...
February 10, 2023
Qiang Xie, Kevin M. Riordan, Scott A. Baldwin et al.
2 citations
preprint
We investigated whether informal meditation practice (i.e., engagement of meditative techniques outside a period of formal meditation) was associated with outcomes in smartphone-based loving-kindness and compassion training. Clinically distressed meditation-naïve participants (n = 351) completed measures of psychological distress, loneliness, empathy, and prosociality at baseline and following...
Assessment
May 18, 2021
Simon B. Goldberg, Scott A. Baldwin, Kevin M. Riordan et al.
73 citations
The working alliance may be relevant in unguided smartphone-based interventions, but no validated measure exists. We evaluated the psychometric properties of the six-item Digital Working Alliance Inventory (DWAI) using a cross-sectional survey of meditation app users ( n = 290) and the intervention arm of a randomized trial testing a smartphone-based meditation app ( n = 314). Exploratory...
March 30, 2021
Matthew J. Hirshberg, Corrina Frye, Cortland J. Dahl et al.
5 citations
preprint
While the extraordinary pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic on student mental health have received considerable attention, less attention has been placed on the well-being of educators. School system employees play a vital role in society, and teacher levels of well-being are associated with the educational outcomes of young people. We extend extant research on the prevalence and correlates of...
JMIR Mental Health
November 27, 2020
Simon B. Goldberg, Ted Imhoff‐Smith, Daniel M. Bolt et al.
104 citations
BACKGROUND: A growing number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest psychological benefits associated with meditation training delivered via mobile health. However, research in this area has primarily focused on mindfulness, only one of many meditative techniques. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of 2 versions of a self-guided, smartphone-based meditation app-the...
August 28, 2020
Simon B. Goldberg, Ted Imhoff‐Smith, Daniel M. Bolt et al.
BACKGROUND A growing number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest psychological benefits associated with meditation training delivered via mobile health. However, research in this area has primarily focused on mindfulness, only one of many meditative techniques. OBJECTIVE This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of 2 versions of a self-guided, smartphone-based meditation app—the...
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
Cortland J. Dahl, Richard J. Davidson
Despite the growing popular and scientific interest in mindfulness and other forms of meditation, there are important gaps in our understanding of the full range of contemplative practices and the manner in which specific forms of meditation may contribute to well-being. In this article, we discuss the relationship between mindfulness and other forms of meditation, such as those related to...
Perspectives on Psychological Science
October 10, 2017
Richard J. Davidson, Cortland J. Dahl
123 citations
Van Dam et al. raise a number of critical issues in contemporary research on mindfulness and meditation and offer a prescriptive agenda for future work in this area. While we agree with all of the key points made in their article, there are a number of important issues omitted that are central to a comprehensive agenda for future research in this area. This commentary highlights five key...
Psychological Assessment
October 13, 2015
Simon B. Goldberg, Joseph Wielgosz, Cortland J. Dahl et al.
180 citations
The current study attempted a rigorous test of the construct validity of a widely used self-report measure of dispositional mindfulness, the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), within the context of an active controlled randomized trial (n = 130). The trial included three arms: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), an active control condition that did not include instruction in...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
July 28, 2015
Cortland J. Dahl, Antoine Lutz, Richard J. Davidson
Scientific research highlights the central role of specific psychological processes, in particular those related to the self, in various forms of human suffering and flourishing. This view is shared by Buddhism and other contemplative and humanistic traditions, which have developed meditation practices to regulate these processes. Building on a previous paper in this journal, we propose a novel...