Mindfulness and Materialism in a Short-Term Experimental Manipulation
D. Watson
North American Journal of Psychology June 2, 2026 DOI: 10.65696/001c.161458 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental design Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Undergraduate participants |
| Intervention | Mind-wandering control |
| Measures | materialism questionnaires |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | No significant differences in materialism scores were found between brief mindfulness exercises and a mind-wandering control, nor among different types of mindfulness exercises. |
Abstract
The effect of brief mindfulness exercises on state-materialism was investigated in three studies with undergraduate participants using an experimental design. It was hypothesized that scores would be reduced on materialism questionnaires that were presented before and after either a 5-minute mindfulness audio presentation or a mind-wandering audio as a control measure. Experiment 1 had the hypothesis that a breathing meditation would reduce scores on materialism questionaries compared to a mind-wandering control exercise. Experiments 2 and 3 had the additional hypothesis that a breathing meditation, a body scan and a loving kindness meditation would be significantly different in their effect on reducing level of materialism. The results found no significant differences between the mindfulness and the mind-wandering manipulations. There were also no significant differences between the different types of mindfulness manipulations. The results indicate that while previous research has shown that materialistic thoughts can be increased with priming manipulations, more investigation is necessary determine if it is possible to decrease state-materialistic thoughts.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Cancer patients (clinical intervention study) | 2003 | Mixed methods: scale development, correlational, quasi-experimental, laboratory, experience-sampling, and clinical intervention study | |
| Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. | 2008 | Controlled laboratory experiment | |
| Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. | 2012 | Two studies: correlational study and experimental study | |
| Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence | 2009 | Experimental study | |
| Mindfulness meditation and substance use in an incarcerated population. Incarcerated population | 2006 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual control condition |