TY - JOUR
T1 - Mindfulness Broadens Awareness and Builds Eudaimonic Meaning
T2 - A Process Model of Mindful Positive Emotion Regulation
AU - Garland, Eric L.
AU - Farb, Norman A.
AU - R. Goldin, Philippe
AU - Fredrickson, Barbara L.
PY - 2015/10/2
Y1 - 2015/10/2
N2 - Contemporary scholarship on mindfulness casts it as a form of purely nonevaluative engagement with experience. Yet, traditionally mindfulness was not intended to operate in a vacuum of dispassionate observation, but was seen as facilitative of eudaimonic mental states. In spite of this historical context, modern psychological research has neglected to ask the question of how the practice of mindfulness affects downstream emotion regulatory processes to impact the sense of meaning in life. To fill this lacuna, here we describe the mindfulness-to-meaning theory, from which we derive a novel process model of mindful positive emotion regulation informed by affective science, in which mindfulness is proposed to introduce flexibility in the generation of cognitive appraisals by enhancing interoceptive attention, thereby expanding the scope of cognition to facilitate reappraisal of adversity and savoring of positive experience. This process is proposed to culminate in a deepened capacity for meaning-making and greater engagement with life.
AB - Contemporary scholarship on mindfulness casts it as a form of purely nonevaluative engagement with experience. Yet, traditionally mindfulness was not intended to operate in a vacuum of dispassionate observation, but was seen as facilitative of eudaimonic mental states. In spite of this historical context, modern psychological research has neglected to ask the question of how the practice of mindfulness affects downstream emotion regulatory processes to impact the sense of meaning in life. To fill this lacuna, here we describe the mindfulness-to-meaning theory, from which we derive a novel process model of mindful positive emotion regulation informed by affective science, in which mindfulness is proposed to introduce flexibility in the generation of cognitive appraisals by enhancing interoceptive attention, thereby expanding the scope of cognition to facilitate reappraisal of adversity and savoring of positive experience. This process is proposed to culminate in a deepened capacity for meaning-making and greater engagement with life.
KW - affective science
KW - broaden-and-build
KW - emotion regulation
KW - eudaimonic well-being
KW - interoception
KW - mindfulness
KW - mindfulness-to-meaning theory
KW - positive emotion
KW - posttraumatic growth
KW - reappraisal
KW - upward spiral
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84948450358&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84948450358&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1047840X.2015.1064294
DO - 10.1080/1047840X.2015.1064294
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84948450358
VL - 26
SP - 293
EP - 314
JO - Psychological Inquiry
JF - Psychological Inquiry
SN - 1047-840X
IS - 4
ER -