Association for Behavior Analysis International

“Mindfulness” originated from the Pali word sati and the Sanskrit word smirti, which refers to an individual’s awareness, attention, remembering (Neale, 2006). Despite its popularity, majority of mindfulness investigations have employed indirect measures in determining its effects (e.g., Batalo 2012; Rabiee., 2014). This symposium presents three recently completed research studies on the impact of mindfulness on behavior, which included direct measures of behavioral effects; specifically, its effects on creativity, charitable giving, and emotional regulation were measured. Adults within the general population, both novice and more experienced meditators, were included in these studies. In light of the results obtained and based on the body of previous research on the behavioural effects of mindfulness, applied implications and future research recommendations will be outlined.

The symposium will be geared towards undergraduate and graduate students in behavior analysis, BCBA and BCBA-D researchers and practitioners in education, healthcare, and applied clinical work.

The present study investigated the effects of mindfulness practice on creative performance of adult participants classified as novice and experienced meditators across four computer tasks. Novice and experienced meditators’ mindfulness and creative performance across divergent, convergent, recombination, and block design were measured while exposed to neutral activity and mindfulness conditions. Participants’ self-reported levels of mindfulness was measured based on the difference between pre- and post- tests scores on the Mindfulness Awareness Assessment Scale (MAAS) and Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Scale (KIMS) across conditions, whereas direct measure of mindfulness was recorded using an iPhone app during mindfulness and maintenance conditions only. Across creative tasks, rate of both novel and redundant responses, duration of task completion, inter-response time (IRT), and latency to the first response were measured per session. Following steady state creative performance in the final mindfulness condition, participants’ mindfulness and creative performance were tested for maintenance. Across meditators, difference scores from the MAAS and KIMS did not yield significant changes between conditions, and difference scores maintained for both the MAAS and KIMS during maintenance tests. Finally, measures of rate, duration, IRT, and latency of creative performances yielded undifferentiated outcomes. However, some dimensions of creative performance maintained following without structured practice.

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of LovingKindness Meditation on charitable giving and written statements about self and others. The study measured charitable giving by counting the amount of total dollars donated in baseline, LovingKindness Meditation, and control condition sessions. Written statements about self and others were measured by administering a writing prompt at the end of each of each session in each of three conditions mentioned above; written statements were categorized as positive, neutral or negative. The results of the study indicate that two out of three participants donated more money in the LovingKindness condition as compared to the baseline or control condition. Additionally, two out of three participants showed higher frequencies of positive statements about self and others in the LovingKidness condition as compared to the other conditions. The overall frequency of negative statements was low for all participants, except for one participant who showed the lowest frequency in the LovingKindness condition.