Abstract
Mindfulness has become a fixture of both clinical treatment and popular culture. Much research and theoretical scholarship have operationalized “mindfulness” as clinicians use the term, yet no research has examined popular (i.e., lay) conceptions of mindfulness. Mindfulness trainings and interventions are now widely offered on college campuses. Thus, as a starting point for assessing lay conceptions of the construct, we examined how undergraduate college students at an urban university (N = 361) conceptualize mindfulness. In open-ended responses, participants linked mindfulness to awareness of external objects, internal sensations, or being in the present moment. When rating sentences on how well they represented mindfulness, participants strongly associated mindfulness with controlling emotions. In both the open-ended and sentence stem responses, mindfulness was rarely associated with psychological acceptance, which is notable because of the importance of acceptance in mindfulness-based clinical treatments. Implications and future directions are discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45.
Baer, R.A., Smith, G.T., Lykins, E., Button, D., Krietemeyer, J., Sauer, S., … & Williams, J.M. G. (2008). Construct validity of the five facet mindfulness questionnaire in meditating and nonmeditating samples. Assessment, 15(3), 329–342.
Bishop, S.R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N.D., Carmody, J., … & Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(3), 230–241.
Bohlmeijer, E. T., ten Klooster, P. M., Fledderus, M., Veehof, M., & Baer, R. (2011). Psychometric properties of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire in depressed adults and development of a short form. Assessment, 18, 308–320.
Bond, F.W., Hayes, S.C., Baer, R.A., Carpenter, K.M., Guenole, N., Orcutt, H.K., … & Zettle, R.D. (2011). Preliminary psychometric properties of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire–II: A revised measure of psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance. Behavior Therapy, 42(4), 676–688.
Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 822–848.
Caldwell, K., Harrison, M., Adams, M., Quin, R. H., & Greeson, J. (2010). Developing mindfulness in college students through movement-based courses: effects on self-regulatory self-efficacy, mood, stress, and sleep quality. Journal of American College Health, 58(5), 433–442.
Cardaciotto, L., Herbert, J. D., Forman, E. M., Moitra, E., & Farrow, V. (2008). The assessment of present-moment awareness and acceptance the Philadelphia mindfulness scale. Assessment, 15(2), 204–223.
Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20(1), 37–46.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper-Perennial.
Davis, J. H. (2014). Facing Up to the Question of Ethics in Mindfulness-Based Interventions. Mindfulness, 6(1), 1–3.
Davis, J. H., & Thompson, E. (2013). Towards a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science. A companion to Buddhist philosophy, 585–597.
Desbordes, G., Gard, T., Hoge, E.A., Hölzel, B.K., Kerr, C., Lazar, S.W., … & Vago, D.R. (2014). Moving beyond mindfulness: defining equanimity as an outcome measure in meditation and contemplative research. Mindfulness, 6(2) 1–17.
Desrosiers, A., Klemanski, D. H., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2013). Mapping mindfulness facets onto dimensions of anxiety and depression. Behavior Therapy, 44(3), 373–384.
Dreyfus, G. (2011). Is mindfulness present-centred and non-judgmental? A discussion of the cognitive dimensions of mindfulness. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 41–54.
Essau, C. A. (2003). Comorbidity of anxiety disorders in adolescents. Depression and Anxiety, 18(1), 1–6.
Griffith, J. W., Zinbarg, R. E., Craske, M. G., Mineka, S., Rose, R. D., Waters, A. M., & Sutton, J. M. (2010). Neuroticism as a common dimension in the internalizing disorders. Psychological Medicine, 40(07), 1125–1136.
Hallgren, K. A. (2012). Computing inter-rater reliability for observational data: an overview and tutorial. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 8(1), 23–34.
Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R., & Friedman, J. (2009). The Elements of Statistical Learning (pp. 485–585). New York: Springer.
Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., & Lillis, J. (2006). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Model, processes and outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1–25.
Henson, R. K., & Roberts, J. K. (2006). Use of exploratory factor analysis in published research common errors and some comment on improved practice. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66(3), 393–416.
Herbert, J. D., & Brandsma, L. L. (2015). Understanding and enhancing psychological acceptance. In S. J. Lynn, W. O’Donohue, & S. Lilienfeld (Eds.), Health, happiness, and well-being: Better living through psychological science (pp. 62–88). Los Angeles: Sage.
Hindman, R. K., Glass, C. R., Arnkoff, D. B., & Maron, D. D. (2014). A Comparison of Formal and Informal Mindfulness Programs for Stress Reduction in University Students. Mindfulness, 6(4), 1–12.
Hofmann, S. G., Sawyer, A. T., Witt, A. A., & Oh, D. (2010). The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(2), 169–183.
Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: The program of the stress reduction clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. New York: Delta.
Kaiser, H. F. (1960). The application of electronic computers to factor analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 141–151.
Light, R. J. (1971). Measures of response agreement for qualitative data: some generalizations and alternatives. Psychological Bulletin, 76(5), 365–377.
Marradi, A. (1981). Factor analysis as an aid in the formation and refinement of empirically useful concepts. In E. F. Borgotta & D. J. Jackson (Eds.), Factor Analysis and Measurement in Sociological Research (pp. 62–88). London: Sage.
Monteiro, L. M., Musten, R. F., & Compson, J. (2015). Traditional and contemporary mindfulness: finding the middle path in the tangle of concerns. Mindfulness, 6(1), 1–13.
Raîche, G., Walls, T. A., Magis, D., Riopel, M., & Blais, J. G. (2013). Non-graphical solutions for Cattell’s scree test. Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 9(1), 23–29.
Regehr, C., Glancy, D., & Pitts, A. (2013). Interventions to reduce stress in university students: A review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 148(1), 1–11.
Shapiro, S. L., Carlson, L. E., Astin, J. A., & Freedman, B. (2006). Mechanisms of mindfulness. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(3), 373–386.
Teasdale, J. D., & Chaskalson, M. (2011a). How does mindfulness transform suffering? I: the nature and origins of dukkha. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 89–102.
Teasdale, J. D., & Chaskalson, M. (2011b). How does mindfulness transform suffering? II: the transformation of dukkha. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 103–124.
Viera, A. J., & Garrett, J. M. (2005). Understanding interobserver agreement: the kappa statistic. Family Medicine, 37(5), 360–363.
Wecker, M. (2015). The Rise of Meditation on College Campuses. Washington Times. Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/7/the-rise-of-meditation-on-college-campuses/?page=all
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
The university’s institutional review board approved the study.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hitchcock, P.F., Martin, L.M., Fischer, L. et al. Popular Conceptions of Mindfulness: Awareness and Emotional Control. Mindfulness 7, 940–949 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0533-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0533-9