Psychological Reports
August 1, 1966
Willis W. Harman, Robert McKim, Robert E. Mogar et al.
140 citations
A preliminary study explored whether psychedelic agents (LSD-25, mescaline) can facilitate creative problem-solving. Twenty-seven professionally employed males received a single psychedelic experience in small groups after extensive selection and preparation. The session was carefully structured to shape participants' expectations and create a supportive social environment. Tentative findings from creativity tests, subjective reports, self-ratings, and the usefulness of problem solutions suggested that, under this regimen, psychedelic agents seem to facilitate creative problem-solving, especially during the “illumination phase.” The results also suggested that various degrees of increased creative ability may persist for at least some weeks after the session.
Psychological Reports
January 6, 2017
Denholm J Adventure-Heart, Michael Proeve
115 citations
Brief mindfulness and loving-kindness meditations increase feelings of social and nature connectedness, but do not alter positive or negative affect. In an experiment with 115 undergraduates, those who listened to a guided mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation reported greater connectedness afterward compared to those who listened to a progressive muscle relaxation control. The two meditation types were similarly effective, and neither changed emotional state.
Psychological Reports
October 1, 1976
Arnold A. Lazarus
87 citations
Transcendental Meditation (TM) is highly effective for properly selected individuals when administered by knowledgeable practitioners, but it is not a universal cure. When used indiscriminately, clinical evidence suggests the technique can trigger serious psychiatric issues, including depression, agitation, and schizophrenic decompensation.
Psychological Reports
February 1, 1964
Charles Savage, Ethel Savage, James Fadiman et al.
25 citations
In a study of psychedelic therapy, patients received LSD and mescaline in a supportive setting after intensive preparation. Subjective questionnaires from 113 patients showed a high frequency of claimed benefit, a low frequency of negative reactions, and a strong link between claimed benefit and reports of 'greater awareness of ultimate reality' during the LSD experience. Clinical data from 74 cases, including blind ratings of MMPI profiles, supported the improvement rate. The total improvement rate was above 80%, with follow-ups ranging from 6 months to 2 years.
Psychological Reports
June 1, 2006
David M. Compton, Melissa C. Selinger, Erin K Testa et al.
16 citations
Rats given the hallucinogenic drug 5-MeO-DIPT (Foxy) during adolescence performed comparably to controls on most spatial navigation tests but were markedly worse on a response-learning task, indicating reduced flexibility in adapting to changing demands. This pattern resembles effects of MDMA and suggests 5-MeO-DIPT may compromise serotonin systems in the forebrain.
Psychological Reports
April 26, 2024
Pierre De Oliveira, Catherine Juneau, Céline Stinus et al.
11 citations
A two-stage study examined how metacognitive processes of decentering—meta-awareness, (dis)identification with internal experiences, and (non)reactivity to thought content—relate to self-transcendence experiences in daily life, including self-transcendent emotions, flow proneness, and an interconnected identity. The first stage validated the French version of the Metacognitive Processes of Decentering Scale (MPoD-t) with 374 participants. The second stage, with 294 participants, found that meta-awareness mediated the link between meditative practice and self-transcendent emotions or flow, while (dis)identification with internal experiences mediated the link between practice and an interconnected identity.
Psychological Reports
November 16, 2023
Grazia Mirabito, Paul Verhaeghen
8 citations
A four-week randomized controlled mindfulness intervention with college students (55 in the intervention group, 57 in the control group; mean age 21.4) found that improvements in daily state mindfulness predicted reductions in intrusive thinking, which in turn predicted lower depression and higher well-being. The intervention improved day-to-day mindfulness, cognitive interference, and sleep, but did not significantly affect physical activity, depression, or well-being. The beneficial effects of state mindfulness were observable over a lag of four days, supporting the idea that mindfulness is a key ingredient in mindfulness interventions. Physical activity, sleep, and practice quality did not mediate any effects. Maintaining high levels of mindfulness may directly benefit mental health.
Psychological Reports
October 1, 1963
Gilbert Honigfeld
7 citations
Cloze analysis assessed the understandability of spontaneous speech from a normal subject who received 9 mg of psilocybin. The drug appeared to enhance verbal communication within the first 1.5 hours, followed by a rapid deterioration in the quality of verbal communication for approximately the next 2 hours.
Psychological Reports
November 16, 2023
Akeesha Simmons, Marissa Ferry, Michael Christopher
6 citations
In a cross-sectional analysis of 169 racially minoritized adults aged 18 to 64, self-compassion, resilience, and certain facets of mindfulness (acting with awareness, nonreactivity) predicted lower depression; self-compassion, resilience, and nonreactivity predicted lower anxiety and stress; and only self-compassion predicted greater satisfaction with life. Self-compassion was the only trait that consistently predicted all four psychological outcomes. The findings suggest that self-compassion may be especially important for promoting positive mental health and reducing distress among adults from racially minoritized communities, who face healthcare disparities and underrepresentation in research.
Psychological Reports
July 1, 2025
Shanice Herms, Anna Sutton, Katharina Näswall
3 citations
Mindfulness can improve work outcomes through two distinct pathways: by buffering the negative effects of stress and by enhancing psychological capital (a personal resource). A survey of 293 working adults found that mindfulness moderated the impact of stress on work engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions, reducing the harmful effects. Additionally, psychological capital mediated the relationship between mindfulness and both work engagement and job satisfaction. The results suggest that mindfulness influences workplace well-being through different mechanisms depending on the specific outcome, supporting the integration of both mindfulness training and psychological capital development in workplace programs.
Psychological Reports
June 1, 2025
Hasan Erguler, Nuno Ferreira, Marios Adonis et al.
2 citations
Dispositional mindfulness—the tendency to be aware and nonjudgmental of present-moment experience—may influence how vividly people imagine future events and how those images relate to distress. In two studies with healthy adults, no link was found between mindfulness facets and perceived risk of positive or negative future events. However, the nonreactivity facet of mindfulness moderated the connection between vividness of negative mental imagery and psychological distress: among those with higher nonreactivity, the usual association between vivid negative imagery and distress was weaker. This suggests that being nonreactive to inner experience can buffer the emotional impact of vivid negative future imaginings, pointing to a potential mechanism for mindfulness-based interventions.
Psychological Reports
April 18, 2025
Yusuf Akyıl, Süleyman Akçıl, Beste Erdinç
2 citations
Self-hatred is linked to a sense of entrapment, and this relationship is partially explained by difficulties in emotion regulation, lower mental well-being, and lower mindfulness. In a survey of 346 university students, those who reported more self-hatred also tended to report feeling more trapped. This link was partly mediated by having more trouble regulating emotions, poorer mental well-being, and less mindfulness. The findings suggest that people who despise themselves may still have some mindfulness but also struggle with emotional control and mental health, which can contribute to feeling confined.
Psychological Reports
July 7, 2025
John E. Lothes, Zayne Naseer, Brooke Perretti
1 citation
Online mindfulness practices over five weeks reduced test anxiety and overall anxiety in college students. In a randomized trial, 79 students were assigned to either sitting meditation or a waitlist control group. Both groups showed significant within-group reductions in test anxiety, overall anxiety, and DASS scores from the start to the end of their mindfulness intervention, along with increases in FFMQ scores. Mindfulness may play a role in reducing anxiety and test anxiety. Offering free online mindfulness programs could provide supplemental support for college counseling centers facing staffing challenges.
Psychological Reports
March 30, 2026
Shaun Sleightholm, Catherine O'Neill
Men are about three times more likely than women to die by suicide, partly because of normative alexithymia—a reduced ability to identify and express emotions tied to masculine norms. Self-transcendental experiences (STEs), which can be induced by psychedelics, have been thought to expand emotional capacity and might reduce normative alexithymia. This study compared scores on the Normative Male Alexithymia Scale among 148 men: those who had never had an STE, those who had one through psychedelics, and those who had one through other means. Contrary to expectations, no significant differences in normative alexithymia levels were found between the groups, suggesting that having an STE does not lower normative alexithymia in men.
Psychological Reports
June 1, 2020
Carole L Bandy, Michael C. Dillbeck, Vincent Sezibera et al.
College students in South Africa with posttraumatic stress disorder who practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique twice daily showed significant reductions in PTSD symptoms and depression compared to a control group of students who did not meditate. The benefits were linked to how regularly students practiced. The findings suggest Transcendental Meditation may serve as an alternative educational intervention for PTSD in higher education settings.
Psychological Reports
June 1, 2020
Helen Z. MacDonald, Anna Olsen
Attentional control, specifically the ability to focus attention, helps explain why certain mindfulness skills are linked to lower anxiety. College students who reported higher levels of describing and acting with awareness—two facets of dispositional mindfulness—showed better focusing attentional control, which in turn was associated with fewer anxiety symptoms. The relationship held after accounting for shifting attentional control. Observing, nonjudging, and nonreacting did not show the same indirect effect through focusing. The findings suggest that training specific mindfulness skills may protect against anxiety by improving the capacity to focus attention.
Psychological Reports
May 25, 2020
Molly A Youngs, Samuel E. Lee, M. Mireku et al.
A single 8-minute mindfulness meditation session, delivered via audio recording, improved visual short-term memory for faces. Participants who completed the meditation showed greater increases in memory capacity from before to after the intervention compared to those who listened to an audiobook or passed the time. Only the meditation group had significant performance gains. The findings suggest that even a very brief mindfulness intervention can produce measurable improvements in short-term memory tasks.
Psychological Reports
December 1, 2016
Jessica Henriksson, Emma Wasara, Michael Rönnlund
An eight-week web-based mindfulness program for adults with chronic pain led to increased mindfulness skills, reduced pain intensity and interference, greater pain acceptance, less emotional distress, and higher life satisfaction compared with an online discussion forum. Effect sizes were large for mindfulness (Cohen's d = 1.18) and moderate to large for other outcomes (d = 0.39–0.85). The control group showed minimal changes (d = 0.01–0.23). The study had a less-than-ideal control condition and no long-term follow-up, so results are promising but preliminary.
Psychological Reports
August 1, 2015
Mitsunobu Yoshimura, Etsuko Kurokawa, Takayuki Noda et al.
People living in areas directly affected by the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami who learned the Transcendental Meditation technique reported a large decrease in stress symptoms (effect size = -1.09) compared to a no-treatment control group. The study compared 171 disaster-area residents with 326 non-disaster Tokyo participants who had previously learned the technique and a control group of 68 people. Symptom reductions were also seen on a measure of symptom intensity. The results suggest the technique may help relieve trauma after a disaster.
Psychological Reports
August 1, 2007
Fabrizio Coppola
A meditation technique practiced for 15 minutes twice daily reduced trait anxiety in 25 participants over two weeks. Trait anxiety scores did not change significantly before starting the practice, but decreased significantly after one week (Cohen's d = .46) and after two weeks (Cohen's d = .67) of regular practice.
Psychological Reports
April 1, 2007
Nima Ghorbani, P J Watson, Reza Rostami
Among 131 Iranian Muslim undergraduates, those who reported a strong religious interpretation of mystical experiences also reported lower depression. This religious interpretation also changed the relationship between introvertive mysticism and anxiety: for people with high religious interpretation and very high introvertive mysticism, introvertive mysticism was linked to less anxiety, not more. The findings suggest that religious interpretation may help reconcile conflicting philosophical and self-report findings about introvertive mysticism.
Psychological Reports
August 1, 2005
J A Beshai
Two approaches to understanding hypnosis—Perceptually Oriented Hypnosis and Phenomenology—both use the concept of the 'Phenomenal Field' of consciousness but differ in their philosophical foundations. Perceptually Oriented Hypnosis relies on Gestalt psychology and Cartesian dualism, while Phenomenology maintains the unity of quality and quantity within consciousness. This commentary explains the philosophical basis of these two methods for arriving at the essence of hypnosis in clinical practice.
Psychological Reports
October 1, 2003
Ezequiel Morsella
The common assumption that phenomenal states have no function is uncorroborated and hinders research. Discovering the function of consciousness is a tractable problem, easier than the hard problem of its neural basis. A method contrasting the task demands of conscious and unconscious processes may reveal its function.
Psychological Reports
February 1, 2000
M E Nielsen
During religious experiences, adults rate themselves as feeling positive affect (enthusiastic, at ease), low neuroticism (calm, relaxed), and high agreeableness (soft-hearted, sympathetic), conscientiousness (conscientious, reliable), and extraversion (sociable, talkative). Openness to experience did not discriminate religious experiences, supporting Block's (1995) criticism of the five-factor model of personality.
Psychological Reports
December 1, 1998
J Houran, R Lange
Precognitive dreams—dreams that seem to foretell the future—may be explained as accidental 'hits' that are more likely to be noticed and interpreted as meaningful by people who have high dream recall and a belief in the paranormal. A study of 50 college students found that tolerance of ambiguity, the ability to accept uncertain or contradictory information, supports both storing and recalling ambiguous dream content and attributing it to paranormal causes. The model's fit did not depend on sex or age. Alternative models confirmed the roles of tolerance of ambiguity and belief in the paranormal but did not confirm dream recall frequency as a crucial factor.