A study published in Psychotherapy suggests that the causal link between mindfulness and better psychological functioning may not be as expected. The study found evidence to suggest that positive affect leads to increased time spent practicing mindfulness.
Numerous studies have documented the psychological benefits of daily meditation, even suggesting that as the length of practice increases, so do the beneficial effects. However, no study has established a causal link between mindfulness intervention practice and the associated outcomes.
As study authors Simon B. Goldberg and his team point out, there’s reason to believe that the relationship may flow in a different direction than expected.
The authors say, “it may be that individuals are more likely to engage in mindfulness practice when they are feeling better (i.e., lower negative affect, higher positive affect). One straightforward explanation for this is that mindfulness practice, which centers on attending to one’s internal experience (Kabat-Zinn, 2013), is simply easier to do when one’s internal experience (e.g., mood) is more pleasant and less unpleasant.”
A longitudinal study was carried out over a 12-week mindfulness-based intervention among a sample of 25 adults. Participants were students of a course designed to teach clinicians to administer MORE, which is an intervention involving “a combination of mindfulness techniques, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and positive psychology.” As part of the course, students were asked to practice 15-30 minutes of mindfulness every day and to keep a diary of their sessions. The students logged their daily positive and negative affect and the length of each practice. On the days they practiced, students also completed an assessment of state mindfulness.
Results showed that participants practiced mindfulness for an average of 20 minutes per day. Next, the analysis showed that throughout the 12 weeks, as minutes spent practicing increased, participants reported higher positive affect and lower negative affect.
To get closer to causal inferences, researchers examined lagged models. These models allowed researchers to examine the delayed effects of current day practice on subsequent day outcomes, and current day outcomes on subsequent day practice. Interestingly, current day practice had no effect on subsequent day positive affect, negative affect, or state mindfulness.
Some current day outcomes, however, did predict subsequent day practice. It was found that students’ current day negative affect was correlated with fewer minutes of practice the following day and a greater likelihood of skipping practice the next day. Specifically, “On days with negative affect one standard deviation above the mean, participants were predicted to show a 5% decrease in subsequent day practice time and a 42% increase in the likelihood of not practicing the next day.”
Additionally, students with higher current day state mindfulness practiced mindfulness for more minutes the following day.
The authors express, “Practice time and outcome may be correlated (as was seen in the current sample), but this does not necessar[ily] mean that more practice causes better outcomes. This possibility contradicts how practice time may be traditionally conceptualized within MBIs (i.e., that more is better).”
The researchers acknowledge that their study was limited by a small sample that was unrepresentative of the general population. In order to provide further evidence of the causality between mindfulness practice and outcomes, they suggest that future studies should randomly assign participants to varying degrees of mindfulness practice.
The study, “Does mindfulness practice promote psychological functioning or is it the other way around? A daily diary study”, was authored by Simon B. Goldberg, Adam W. Hanley, Scott A. Baldwin, Amit Bernstein, and Eric L. Garland.
