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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.