Pain is a multidimensional experience that combines sensory, affective, and cognitive factors, causing its treatment to be extremely complicated and expensive. However, mindfulness meditation has been shown to be a cost-effective approach to decreasing experimental and clinical pain. We have repeatedly shown that four days of mindfulness meditation training can significantly reduce experimentally induced pain …
Prosociality, an inherent part of society, ensures the thriving and success of social groups. Understanding the role of stress on empathic prosocial behaviors, like helping behavior, is important for societal well-being, and for shedding light on stress-related neuropsychiatric diseases such as depression, social anxiety, and autism. As opposed to chronic and severe stressors, there is …
Meditation-naïve participants (n=45) will be recruited from Auburn University. Once recruited, participants will be randomized to either the meditation group, the active control group, or the inactive control group. Every effort will be made to promote engagement and reduce attrition, including offering extra credit in psychology classes along with monetary incentives. Each EEG and psychophysiological …
There is clear evidence that mindfulness is a beneficial trait and one that can be cultivated with training. However, science has made relatively modest progress in developing our ability to measure mindfulness. To date, most research relies heavily on asking people how mindful they are, gathering assessments that may or may not accurately reflect reality. …
An important next step in the field of mindfulness measurement is the development of behavioral methods quantifying processes of attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation. We propose that these processes include: sustained attention, disengagement from mindlessness, intentional shifting of awareness, and an open field of awareness. Accordingly, we developed a novel behavioral paradigm measuring these …
Maladaptive habits are at the root of a variety of clinical concerns, including depression, substance abuse and suicidality. Mindfulness meditation is believed to inhibit maladaptive habit formation by increasing awareness of cognitive and emotional states while also decreasing reactivity. Relaxing cognitive and behavioral habits may allow more mindful people to behave in ways that are …
Over years of long-term practice, meditators’ brains and minds develop extraordinary abilities. One such ability is being able to exercise control over even basic mental processes that have long thought to be automatic from decades of research on non-meditating populations. A prior behavioral study conducted with expert Tibetan Buddhist practitioners who were shown ambiguous visual …
If you’ve tried meditation, one of the first mental experiences you probably become aware of is that your mind doesn’t tend to stay in one place. “Mind wandering” is an extremely common occurrence, with studies suggesting it makes up nearly half of our waking lives. When our minds wander, they can go nearly anywhere—from negative …
The present research uniquely sheds light on the practices of Humanistic Buddhism (a form of Engaged Buddhism most prevalent in modern Taiwan), which have been completely neglected in contemplative science. It also explores the social and ecological implications of contemplative practice, another under-investigated area of research. By investigating the effects of a Buddhist monastic retreat …
I am developing and validating two behavioral assessments of nonjudgmental orientation to experience, a key dimension of mindfulness. Currently, mindfulness is most commonly assessed by self-report questionnaires, which suffer from numerous limitations. Developing measures beyond self-report to assess nonjudgment is essential to exploring its role in mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) and contemplative practices. Additionally, the development …
