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...
JMIR Mental Health
June 12, 2026
Polina Beloborodova, Lillian M. Smith, Kevin M. Riordan et al.
Background: Digital meditation-based interventions (MBIs) reach vast global audiences with millions of active users, yet concerns persist about the frequency and nature of adverse experiences (ie, AExs) occurring during meditation training. Some researchers have argued that AExs are substantially underdetected and reflect iatrogenic harm caused by meditation (ie, adverse effects [AEfs]). Others...
Mindfulness (N Y)
May 19, 2026
Polina Beloborodova, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Simon B. Goldberg
This invited commentary responds to Berryman et al. (2025), "The mindful scientist: How meditation could support ethical scientific practice," and offers an implementation-focused perspective on the role of meditation-based ethical development interventions (MBEDs) within contemporary academic systems. We begin by acknowledging the importance of the ethical challenges facing academia and the...
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...
Applied developmental science
2025
Lisa Flook, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Lori Gustafson et al.
20 citations
More research is needed to understand the effects of school-based mindfulness programs in the years before adolescence, which represent a critical juncture and transitional period of development. The present study investigated mindfulness with elementary school students using random assignment and objective measures. The sample included 292 5th graders from 21 classrooms randomly assigned to an...
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)...
Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
May 1, 2024
Simon B. Goldberg, Zishan Jiwani, Daniel M. Bolt et al.
8 citations
Bidirectional associations between changes in symptoms and alliance are established for in-person psychotherapy. Alliance may play an important role in promoting engagement and effectiveness within unguided mobile health (mHealth) interventions. Using models disaggregating alliance and psychological distress into within- and between-person components (random intercept cross-lagged panel model),...
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
September 28, 2023
Christian A. Webb, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Oscar González et al.
6 citations
OBJECTIVE: they work. Mechanisms of change may be obscured due to prior research collapsing across heterogeneous subgroups of patients with differing underlying mechanisms of response. Studies identifying baseline individual characteristics that predict differential response (i.e., moderation) may inform research on why (i.e., mediation) a particular subgroup has better outcomes to an...
Nature. Mental health
July 10, 2023
Julieta Galante, Claire Friedrich, Napaporn Aeamla-Or et al.
102 citations
Mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs) are widely used to prevent mental ill-health that is becoming the leading global cause of morbidity. Evidence suggests beneficial average effects but wide variability. We aimed to confirm the effect of MBPs on psychological distress, and to understand whether and how baseline distress, gender, age, education, and dispositional mindfulness modify the effect of...
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...
Journal of Medical Internet Research
September 26, 2022
Christian A. Webb, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Richard J. Davidson et al.
26 citations
BACKGROUND: Meditation apps have surged in popularity in recent years, with an increasing number of individuals turning to these apps to cope with stress, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meditation apps are the most commonly used mental health apps for depression and anxiety. However, little is known about who is well suited to these apps. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop and test...
July 31, 2022
Christian A. Webb, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Richard J. Davidson et al.
1 citation
BACKGROUND Meditation apps have surged in popularity in recent years, with an increasing number of individuals turning to these apps to cope with stress, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, meditation apps now represent the most commonly used mental health apps for depression and anxiety. However, little is known regarding who is well-suited to these apps. OBJECTIVE The aim of this...
Science Advances
May 20, 2022
Tammi R. A. Kral, Kaley Davis, Cole Korponay et al.
67 citations
Studies purporting to show changes in brain structure following the popular, 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course are widely referenced despite major methodological limitations. Here, we present findings from a large, combined dataset of two, three-arm randomized controlled trials with active and waitlist (WL) control groups. Meditation-naïve participants ( n = 218) completed...
July 29, 2021
Christian A. Webb, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Richard J. Davidson et al.
1 citation
preprint
Meditation apps are popular and may reduce psychological distress, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is not clear who is most likely to benefit. Using randomized controlled trial data comparing a 4-week meditation app (Healthy Minds Program; HMP) with an assessment-only control in school system employees (n=662), we developed an algorithm predicting who is most likely to...
medRxiv
June 16, 2021
Tammi R. A. Kral, Kaley Davis, Cole Korponay et al.
2 citations
preprint
Abstract Studies purporting to show changes in brain structure following the popular, eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course are widely referenced despite major methodological limitations. Here, we present findings from a large, combined dataset of two, three-arm randomized controlled trials with active and waitlist (WL) control groups. Meditation-naive participants (n=218)...
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...
Cognition & Emotion
January 29, 2021
Simon B. Goldberg, Lisa Flook, Matthew J. Hirshberg et al.
6 citations
Mindfulness-based interventions that span multiple sessions over time appear to confer psychological benefits. However, the effects of brief periods of mindfulness meditation training are less clear, particularly on measures of cognitive functioning. This study assessed whether brief mindfulness practice (breath awareness) or training in two other contemplative practices – loving-kindness and...
January 30, 2020
Matthew J. Hirshberg, Simon B. Goldberg, Melissa A. Rosenkranz et al.
5 citations
preprint
Background: Mindfulness meditation has become a common method for reducing stress, stress-related psychopathology and some physical symptoms. As mindfulness programs become ubiquitous, concerns have been raised about their unknown potential for harm. We estimate multiple indices of harm following Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on two primary outcomes: global psychological and...
PLoS One
August 28, 2019
Simon B. Goldberg, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Lawrence Y. Tello et al.
2 citations
The impact of meditation training on self-report psychological variables is well-established. Although meditation training is purported to have interpersonal impacts, whether naïve observers perceive differences associated with long- and short-term meditation training is largely unknown. The current study provided a stringent test of this possibility through observer ratings of a very thin...
PLoS One
December 12, 2018
Matthew J. Hirshberg, Simon B. Goldberg, S. Schaefer et al.
33 citations
Mindfulness practices are increasingly being utilized as a method for cultivating well-being. The term mindfulness is often used as an umbrella for a variety of different practices and many mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) contain multiple styles of practice. Despite the diversity of practices within MBIs, few studies have investigated whether constituent practices produce specific...