Mindfulness as Practice: A Network Analysis of FMI data
Joseph T Smith, Heather Kempton, Matt Williams, Clifford Van Ommen
PsyArXiv June 16, 2020 preprint DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/4rymb (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cross-sectional study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 654 |
| Population | Regular mindfulness practitioners and non-practitioners (including irregular practitioners) recruited online from Amazon Mechanical Turk |
| Measures | Friedberg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | Network density did not significantly differ between practitioners and non-practitioners, but evidence supported a significant difference in network structure. Exploratory analysis found substantive group differences in how items were connected, with Acceptance more central in the practitioners' network than in the non-practitioners' network, which the authors suggest may make Acceptance particularly useful for engagement in mindfulness practices. |
Abstract
Mindfulness research implicitly conceives of mindfulness as an identifiable real ‘thing’ that exists beyond what is directly observed. Recently, a new methodology has been developed which allows mindfulness to be modelled as a complex system or network at the level of self-report. In these models, items become a network’s nodes, and the statistical relations between them, edges. Interpreted causally, nodes are thought to increasingly influence each other via their edges, such that they become increasingly correlated. This study hypothesises that at a cross-sectional level, this may result in differences in overall network connectivity (density) between practitioners and non-practitioners.Mindfulness networks were estimated for practitioners and non-practitioners using the Friedberg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI). A total of 371 regular mindfulness practitioners and 283 non-practitioners (including 59 irregular practitioners) were recruited online from Amazon Mechanical Turk.Comparisons of practitioners’ and non-practitioners’ networks indicated that network density did not significantly differ, whereas evidence was found in support of a significant difference in network structure. An exploratory analysis revealed substantive group differences in how items (practices) were connected. In particular, the practice of Acceptance appeared more central to the practitioners’ network relative to the non-practitioners network, indicating Acceptance may be particularly useful for engagement in mindfulness practices.The study supports investigating mindfulness as a complex network at the level of self-report, with implications for how the development of mindfulness is conceptualised. The lack of difference in network density indicates that research is needed to examine network dynamics in the context of regular mindfulness practice.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construct Validity of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire in Meditating and Nonmeditating Samples Experienced meditators and nonmeditating comparison groups | 2008 | Cross-sectional study | |
| Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling Adult participants | 2007 | Observational cross-sectional | n = 27 |
| Assessing mindfulness in children and adolescents: Development and validation of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM). School-aged children and adolescents | 2011 | Cross-sectional validation study | n = 1,413 |
| Mindfulness and self-compassion as predictors of psychological wellbeing in long-term meditators and matched nonmeditators Experienced meditators and demographically matched nonmeditators | 2012 | Cross-sectional study | n = 152 |
| Mechanisms of Action in the Inverse Relationship Between Mindfulness and Psychological Distress Undergraduates | 2008 | Cross-sectional, correlational |