Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
December 1, 2018
Emily K. Lindsay, Brian Chin, Carol M. Greco et al.
221 citations
Mindfulness interventions that train both monitoring of present-moment experiences and an accepting orientation toward them (Monitor + Accept) boost positive emotions in daily life, while training monitoring alone does not. Across two randomized controlled trials with stressed community adults, those who received Monitor + Accept training reported greater positive affect after the intervention compared with those who received monitoring-only training or no treatment. The effect appeared in end-of-day positive affect in an 8-week group-based study and in both end-of-day and momentary positive affect in a 2-week smartphone-based study. All active interventions reduced negative affect. Acceptance skills are a central mechanism for increasing positive emotions through mindfulness.
Health Psychology
May 23, 2019
Brian Chin, Emily K. Lindsay, Carol M. Greco et al.
107 citations
Training in both monitoring and acceptance skills—but not monitoring skills alone—reduced stress and increased nonjudgment in daily life. Stressed community adults who completed an 8-week mindfulness program that included acceptance training reported lower stress ratings and fewer stress episodes compared with those who received only monitoring training or no treatment. The findings suggest that acceptance skills may be a necessary active ingredient for stress resilience.
PLoS One
July 11, 2019
Daniella K. Villalba, Emily K. Lindsay, Anna L. Marsland et al.
59 citations
Two randomized controlled trials tested whether mindfulness training reduces inflammation, measured by C-Reactive Protein (CRP), in stressed community adults. One trial used a 2-week smartphone-based intervention; the other used an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. Training that combined attention monitoring with acceptance skills did not lower CRP compared to training without acceptance or to a control condition. Exploratory analyses combining data from both studies suggested that either mindfulness approach might reduce CRP in midlife-to-older adults and individuals with high body mass index, populations at risk for systemic inflammation.
Journal of Experimental Psychology General
September 24, 2020
Brian Chin, Emily K. Lindsay, Carol M. Greco et al.
49 citations
An 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention that included both monitoring and acceptance skills, and a modified version that focused on monitoring skills only, both improved momentary and trait attentional control compared with no treatment. Improvements in momentary attentional control partially accounted for gains in trait attentional control. Performance on a dichotic listening sustained-attention task did not improve. The results suggest that present-focused monitoring skills training is a key driver of mindfulness-related improvements in attentional control.
August 21, 2018
Emily K. Lindsay, Brian Chin, Carol M. Greco et al.
9 citations
Training in both monitoring present-moment experiences and accepting them boosts positive emotions more than monitoring alone. In two randomized trials with stressed community adults, a mindfulness intervention that taught monitoring plus acceptance skills increased daily positive affect, while a structurally equivalent intervention teaching only monitoring did not. The acceptance-focused intervention raised end-of-day positive affect in an 8-week group-based study and both end-of-day and momentary positive affect in a 2-week smartphone-based study. All active interventions reduced negative affect. These results indicate that cultivating acceptance toward present-moment experiences is a key mechanism through which mindfulness interventions enhance positive emotions in everyday life.
September 28, 2017
Emily K. Lindsay, Shinzen Young, Joshua M. Smyth et al.
9 citations
preprint
Training in both monitoring present-moment experience and accepting it reduces biological stress reactivity, whereas monitoring alone does not. In a randomized trial, 153 stressed adults completed one of three 15-lesson smartphone-based trainings: Monitor+Accept, Monitor Only, or an active Coping control. After training, a social stress test showed that Monitor+Accept training lowered cortisol and systolic blood pressure reactivity compared to the other two conditions. Subjective stress levels were moderate across all groups. The findings indicate that acceptance is a key mechanism driving mindfulness-related stress reduction effects on biology.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
June 1, 2025
Saida Heshmati, Chelsea Muth, Yanling Li et al.
3 citations
An 8-week randomized controlled trial with 160 college-attending early adults aged 18-22 used a mobile health platform to test whether skills for psychological well-being can be learned through ecological momentary interventions. Participants were assigned to an active control group, a positive practices intervention, or a positive practices plus meditation intervention. Bayesian process modeling indicated that the mobile assessment tool itself may have improved well-being over time, shown by increased within-person mean levels, decreased intra-individual variability, and improved regulation of positive emotions and relationship quality. Moderation analysis further suggested that people who initially had low negative affect improved most in their average positive emotions and relationship quality.