Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
January 1, 2003
Kirk Warren Brown, Richard M. Ryan
13,338 citations
Mindfulness, an attribute of consciousness, is linked to well-being. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) was developed and validated to measure dispositional mindfulness. Studies show the MAAS captures a unique quality of consciousness related to well-being, distinguishes mindfulness practitioners, and is associated with enhanced self-awareness. An experience-sampling study found that both dispositional and state mindfulness predict self-regulated behavior and positive emotional states. In a clinical intervention with cancer patients, increases in mindfulness over time corresponded with declines in mood disturbance and stress.
Psychological Inquiry
October 19, 2007
Kirk Warren Brown, Richard M. Ryan, J. David Creswell
3,622 citations
Mindfulness involves paying attention to present-moment experience with an open and non-judgmental attitude. This article examines how mindfulness relates to established theories of attention and awareness in everyday life. It reviews evidence that mindfulness reduces negative functioning and enhances positive outcomes across mental health, physical health, behavioral regulation, and interpersonal relationships. The authors discuss proposed mechanisms for these benefits and suggest future directions for theoretical development and empirical research.
Training and Education in Professional Psychology
May 1, 2007
Shauna L. Shapiro, Kirk Warren Brown, Gina M. Biegel
1,134 citations
Therapists in training who completed an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program reported significant declines in stress, negative affect, rumination, and both state and trait anxiety, along with significant increases in positive affect and self-compassion. The enhancement of mindfulness was linked to several of these benefits. The findings suggest that MBSR can be a useful complement to professional training for addressing the mental health needs of future therapists.
Journal of Management
November 19, 2015
Darren Good, Christopher Lyddy, Theresa M. Glomb et al.
1,007 citations
A growing body of evidence suggests mindfulness is closely tied to many aspects of workplace functioning, but this knowledge has not been systematically integrated. This review organizes the expanding mindfulness scholarship into a framework to guide management research. The framework shows how mindfulness affects attention, which then influences cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology. These domains ultimately impact key workplace outcomes such as performance, relationships, and well-being. The evidence on mindfulness at work raises important questions and challenges key assumptions in management science, pointing toward an agenda for future research.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
January 1, 2009
Gina M. Biegel, Kirk Warren Brown, Shauna L. Shapiro et al.
657 citations
A randomized clinical trial tested the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program for adolescents aged 14 to 18 years with various mental health diagnoses in an outpatient psychiatric setting. Compared to those receiving treatment as usual, adolescents who completed MBSR reported fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression, and somatic distress, along with improved self-esteem and sleep quality. The MBSR group also showed a higher rate of diagnostic improvement over five months and greater increases in global functioning, as rated by clinicians unaware of treatment assignment. These results suggest MBSR may be a useful addition to standard outpatient mental health care for adolescents.
Clinical Psychology Science and Practice
January 1, 2004
Kirk Warren Brown, Richard M. Ryan
552 citations
As mindfulness research progresses, defining and measuring the construct precisely is crucial. Drawing from their research, the authors address four key issues raised by Bishop et al.: the nature of mindfulness, the role of acceptance within it, how mindfulness relates to meditation, and how to measure mindfulness in both meditative and other settings.
Psychological Assessment
January 1, 2011
Kirk Warren Brown, Angela Marie West, Tamara M. Loverich et al.
460 citations
A measure of mindfulness originally validated for adults, the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), was adapted for adolescents (MAAS-A) and tested in two studies. In 595 healthy 14- to 18-year-olds, the scale showed a single-factor structure, high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent and incremental validity. In 102 psychiatric outpatients aged 14–18, those randomized to a mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention had significant increases in MAAS-A scores from baseline to 3-month follow-up, while treatment-as-usual participants showed nonsignificant changes. Increases in MAAS-A scores were related to beneficial changes in mental health indicators. The MAAS-A appears reliable and valid for normative and mixed psychiatric adolescent populations.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
December 22, 2010
Shauna L. Shapiro, Kirk Warren Brown, Carl E. Thoresen et al.
448 citations
A randomized controlled trial with 30 participants tested whether people who already have higher levels of trait mindfulness benefit more from mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Compared to a control group, MBSR led to increases in trait mindfulness, subjective well-being, and empathy that lasted up to 12 months. Participants who began with higher mindfulness showed larger gains in those areas plus hope, and larger reductions in perceived stress over the same period.
Psychological Assessment
January 1, 2016
Jordan T. Quaglia, Sarah Braun, Sara P Freeman et al.
339 citations
Mindfulness training leads to small-to-moderate increases in self-reported dispositional mindfulness, with effect sizes ranging from g = 0.28 to 0.49 across five dimensions (Attention, Description, Nonjudgment, Nonreactivity, Observation). Changes in these mindfulness dimensions are moderately correlated with beneficial mental health outcomes (r = .27 to 0.30), except for Observation (r = .16). Moderation analyses yielded inconsistent results, and the overall findings highlight limitations in current mindfulness assessment and suggest directions for future research.
Psychological Inquiry
October 19, 2007
Kirk Warren Brown, Richard M. Ryan, J. David Creswell
300 citations
Mindfulness involves waking up to what the present moment offers, a practice that sounds simple but is often challenging. The work explores the concept of mindfulness as a way of attending to each moment as both a beginning and an end, emphasizing the difficulty of maintaining present-moment awareness in daily life.
NeuroImage Clinical
January 1, 2013
Britta K. Hölzel, Elizabeth A Hoge, Douglas N. Greve et al.
285 citations
Mindfulness training alters brain activity in regions involved in emotion regulation among people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). In a preliminary study, 26 GAD patients were randomly assigned to either an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program or a stress management education control. At baseline, GAD patients showed higher amygdala activation than healthy participants when viewing neutral faces, indicating heightened reactivity to ambiguous stimuli. After both interventions, amygdala activation to neutral faces decreased. MBSR, but not the control, led to greater increases in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) activity and strengthened amygdala-prefrontal functional connectivity. These brain changes correlated with reductions in anxiety scores, suggesting clinical relevance. The shift from negative to positive amygdala-prefrontal coupling may represent a unique mechanism of mindfulness.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
January 17, 2012
Kirk Warren Brown, Robert J. Goodman, Michael Inzlicht
266 citations
People who are more mindful show reduced brain responses to highly arousing unpleasant images, as measured by the late positive potential (LPP) of event-related brain potentials. High arousal unpleasant images generally elicited larger LPP responses, replicating past research. More mindful individuals had lower LPP responses to these images, even after accounting for trait attentional control. In contrast, neuroticism and negative affectivity were linked to larger LPP responses to the same images. Mindfulness was also associated with lower LPP responses to motivationally salient pleasant images (erotica). These findings suggest that mindfulness shapes early neural processing of emotional stimuli, which may contribute to healthier emotional functioning.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
July 26, 2010
Christopher P. Niemiec, Kirk Warren Brown, Todd B. Kashdan et al.
247 citations
People who are more mindful—characterized by receptive attention to present experience—show less defensive responding after being reminded of their own death. Seven experiments found that less mindful individuals displayed stronger worldview defense and self-esteem striving after mortality salience, whereas more mindful individuals did not defend values associated with mindfulness. More mindful participants wrote about their death for longer, which partly explained their reduced worldview defense, and they suppressed death thoughts less immediately after the reminder. The findings suggest mindfulness reduces typical defensive reactions to death awareness by altering conscious processing of threat.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
June 5, 2015
Adrienne A. Taren, Peter J. Gianaros, Carol M. Greco et al.
232 citations
Higher perceived stress over the past month is associated with greater functional connectivity between the amygdala and the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) in a sample of 130 community adults. A subsequent randomized controlled trial with 35 stressed unemployed adults showed that a 3-day intensive mindfulness meditation training, compared to a relaxation training without mindfulness, reduced right amygdala-sgACC connectivity. The findings suggest that mindfulness meditation training may reverse stress-related increases in amygdala-sgACC connectivity, indicating a neural pathway for stress reduction.
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.
Neuropsychobiology
January 1, 2013
Jan A. Moynihan, Benjamin P. Chapman, Rafael Klorman et al.
213 citations
A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for older adults found small but significant improvements in executive function, mindfulness, and sustained left frontal alpha asymmetry (an indicator of positive emotions) immediately after the intervention. MBSR participants showed a lower Trail Making Test B/A ratio, reduced shift to rightward frontal alpha activation, and higher baseline antibody levels after intervention. However, they had lower antibody responses 24 weeks after antigen challenge, an unexpected finding. The study suggests MBSR may benefit cognitive and emotional functioning in older adults but its effects on immune function require further investigation.
Psychosomatic Medicine
March 22, 2017
Adrienne A. Taren, Peter J. Gianaros, Carol M. Greco et al.
212 citations
Three days of intensive mindfulness meditation training, compared with relaxation training, strengthened functional connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and brain regions involved in executive control. In adults with high psychological distress, resting-state functional connectivity increased between left dlPFC and the right inferior frontal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, right supplementary eye field, right parietal cortex, and left middle temporal gyrus, and between right dlPFC and right middle frontal gyrus. These results suggest that even brief mindfulness training can enhance neural circuit connectivity underlying executive function, extending prior work on active meditation by identifying specific resting-state networks affected in distressed individuals.
Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education
March 1, 2011
Shauna L. Shapiro, Kirk Warren Brown, John A. Astin
206 citations
Meditation may help college students improve attention, information processing, stress resilience, and interpersonal skills, according to a review of published research. The authors argue that integrating meditation into higher education could support both traditional academic goals and education of the 'whole person.' They call for future research to be theory-based, methodologically rigorous, and to examine a wider range of educational outcomes, as well as best practices for teaching meditation in academic settings.
Journal of Experimental Psychology General
January 1, 2018
Daniel R. Berry, Athena H. Cairo, Robert J. Goodman et al.
176 citations
Mindfulness, whether naturally occurring or briefly instructed, increases helping behavior toward strangers who are being excluded by others. Four studies showed that people higher in dispositional mindfulness felt more empathic concern for an ostracized stranger and were more likely to help them. Brief mindfulness instructions, compared to active control instructions, also promoted prosocial responses. These effects were not explained by empathic anger, a desire to punish the perpetrator, or relaxation. Empathic concern consistently mediated the link between mindfulness and helping. Meta-analyses across the studies found stable, medium-sized effects of mindfulness instruction on prosocial emotions and behavior.
Emotion
November 7, 2016
Hayley Rahl, Emily K. Lindsay, Laura E. Pacilio et al.
171 citations
Training in acceptance is a critical driver of mindfulness-training reductions in mind wandering. Healthy young adults (N = 147) were randomized to a 3-day brief mindfulness training incorporating both attention monitoring and acceptance, attention monitoring only, relaxation training, or an active reading-control condition. The attention-monitoring plus acceptance condition had the lowest mind wandering on a sustained attention task, significantly lower than attention-monitoring only. This suggests acceptance skills may facilitate emotion regulation on boring and frustrating tasks that foster mind wandering.
The Journal of Positive Psychology
May 1, 2009
Kevin M. Orzech, Shauna L. Shapiro, Kirk Warren Brown et al.
128 citations
Intensive mindfulness training—10–12 hours of formal practice daily for one month—increases trait mindfulness and decentering (reperceiving) in community adults, compared to wait-list controls. Over the period from pre-training to one-month follow-up, mindfulness, decentering, and acceptance rose, while anxiety declined and subjective well-being and self-compassion improved. Increases in trait mindfulness and acceptance were linked to better psychological symptoms, well-being, and resilience.
Clinical Psychology Science and Practice
July 1, 2004
Kirk Warren Brown
112 citations
Mindfulness is defined and measured with increasing precision as research progresses. The commentary addresses four key issues: the nature of mindfulness, the role of acceptance within it, how mindfulness relates to meditation, and how to measure mindfulness both in meditative and other settings. The authors draw on their own recent research to discuss these topics, which are central to the field's advancement.
Psychological Assessment
November 28, 2011
Kirk Warren Brown, Richard M. Ryan, Tamara M. Loverich et al.
108 citations
Self-report measures of mindfulness, specifically the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and its adolescent version, are valid tools for assessing mindfulness as an inherent human capacity that varies naturally, not only among trained meditators. The authors argue that attention and meta-awareness are core to mindfulness, and that scores on these scales relate to outcomes similar to those from mindfulness training. Extensive evidence supports the validity of the MAAS and MAAS–A, countering critiques that such measures cannot capture mindfulness or that mindfulness only applies to trained individuals. Construct measurement, though imperfect, is essential for building knowledge and refining interventions.
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
April 26, 2016
Kirk Warren Brown, Robert J. Goodman, Richard M. Ryan et al.
105 citations
Mindful attention, a receptive focus on present-moment experience, improves episodic memory—a key form of long-term memory. A three-study series using the Remember-Know paradigm and free recall found that self-reported mindful attention predicted better recognition memory (Study 1, 143 participants). Very brief focused-attention mindfulness training enhanced recognition memory compared to an active control (Study 2, 93 participants) and generalized to free recall (Study 3, 57 participants). The effect was mediated by intrinsic motivation. These results suggest mindfulness can benefit motivation and episodic memory, with implications for education and work performance.