Dispositional Mindfulness, Meditation, and Conditional Goal Setting.
Mindfulness December 1, 2010 Catherine Crane, Danka Jandric, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
Conditional goal setting (CGS), the tendency to make happiness conditional on achieving lower-order goals, is linked to depression and lower dispositional mindfulness. In a pilot randomized trial of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) over 3–4 months, increases in dispositional mindfulness were associated with decreases in CGS, though this effect was not specific to the meditation-trained group. In 55 healthy participants, brief meditation—particularly loving kindness meditation—unexpectedly increased CGS, an effect limited to those low in goal re-engagement ability. Longer-term mindfulness gains may reduce CGS in depressed patients, but initial reactions to meditation can be counterintuitive, warranting further research.