2015 ConceptualandMethodologicalIssu
- (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015) ⇒ Richard J. Davidson, and Alfred W. Kaszniak. (2015). “Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Research on Mindfulness and Meditation.” In: American Psychologist, 70(7). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039512
Subject Headings: Meditation Study, Mindfulness Study, Mindfulness.
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Abstract
Both basic science and clinical research on mindfulness, meditation, and related constructs has dramatically increased in recent years. However, interpretation of these research results has been challenging. The present article addresses unique conceptual and methodological problems posed by research in this area. Included among the key topics is the role of first person experience and how it can be best studied; the challenges posed by intervention research designs in which true double-blinding is not possible; the nature of control and comparison conditions for research that includes mindfulness or other meditation-based interventions; issues in the adequate description of mindfulness and related trainings and interventions; the question of how mindfulness can be measured; questions regarding what can and cannot be inferred from self-report measures; and considerations regarding the structure of study design and data analyses. Most of these topics are germane to both basic and clinical research studies and have important bearing on the future scientific understanding of mindfulness and meditation.
I. Introduction
Mindfulness meditation and other meditative practices are increasingly popular and a growing number of people world-wide are using them in their personal lives to produce a variety of outcomes ranging from being ten-percent happier (Harris, 2014), to being a little more relaxed and less anxious, to coping with chronic pain and much more. Those who use some form of meditation on a weekly basis in the United States have been estimated to number more than 20 million, based upon a 2007 survey, and likely to be even more today (Barnes, Bloom, & Nahin, 2008). There presently exist a number of popular magazines, books, and websites concerned with meditation, and the spiritual traditions in which meditation practices have played a key role. Meditation and related practices have been taught within non-sectarian contexts, in educational settings, hospitals, and clinics (Duerr, Zajonc, & Dana, 2003; Hart, 2004; Salmon, Santorelli, & Kabat-Zinn, 1998; Shapiro, Brown, & Astin, 2011). There has also been an accelerating increase, particularly since the late 1990s, in publications related to mindfulness (J. Mark G. Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2011). Despite this proliferation of research, findings are often difficult to interpret, in large part due to the unique conceptual and methodological problems posed by research in this area. It is the purpose of the present paper to review these problems and suggest conceptual and methodological approaches to addressing them. Other reviews and studies focusing on the health impact of meditation (Kok et al., 2013; Ospina et al., 2007) and the problems in the measurement of mindfulness (Brown, West, Loverich, & Biegel, 2011; Grossman, 2011) have appeared in the past 7 years but a comprehensive overview of methodological issues in this area has been lacking.
II. State, trait, procedure
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III. First, second and third person perspectives
Francisco Varela (Lutz, Lachaux, Martinerie, & Varela, 2002; Varela & Shear, 1999) called attention to the importance of first person experience and the distinctions among first, second and third person perspectives in research on the nature of the mind. First-person perspectives refer to those typically measured by reports from the subject her or himself. Third person perspectives are reflected in objective measures made by an experimenter with no prior relationship to the subject. Second-person perspectives involve measures based upon reports on the subject by another individual knowledgeable about the subject. For example, second-person measures could be based on reports from the subject’s spouse or teacher or persons in some other type of close relationship with the subject. If we wish to seriously understand the nature of lived experience from a first-person perspective, Varela argued that we need a refined instrument of introspective access and reasoned that meditation training—literally becoming more familiar with the nature of one’s own mind—was a methodological necessity to adequately capture the subtlety of conscious experience.
A key target of contemplative practice is awareness itself. According to the contemplative traditions, the clarity and range (or spaciousness) of awareness will be impacted by contemplative practice. Moreover, the quality of awareness will in turn have impact on other mental processes such as perception and learning. To investigate these questions will require that we obtain first person measures of experience and third person measures of the processes hypothesized to be impacted by variations in experience. In a classic example of this approach, Varela and his collaborators (Lutz et al., 2002) trained participants to report on their experience in the immediate seconds just prior to the delivery of a stimulus and they found systematic relations between reports of experience and neural activity evoked by the stimulus. This study underscores the value of creatively combining first and third person methods.
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VI. Measuring Mindfulness: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges
The term mindfulness is an English translation of the Pali word sati, having meanings that have been variously translated as including attention, awareness, retention, and discernment. There has been no single meaning of mindfulness on which all scholars have agreed (see Bodhi, 2011; Dreyfus, 2011; Dunne, 2011; Gethin, 2011). Mindfulness meditation practice, as examined in recent research, typically derives from several different Buddhist traditions and involves aspects of both focused attention and open monitoring, as defined by Lutz et al. (2008). In typical mindfulness practice, focused attention initially rests upon an object such as the breath, while a monitoring function detects, and brings awareness to when the mind has wandered, and repeatedly, without judgment, brings it back to the object. As skill in this monitoring aspect develops, the practitioner learns to observe the functioning of his or her own mind in a calm and unattached manner. Such observation is held to allow insight into the causes and conditions of behavior and suffering (Gunaratana, 1993). In open monitoring, the specific object of mindfulness is dropped and the meditator is instructed to be aware of whatever might arise in the present moment. Shapiro & Carlson (2009) note that mindfulness meditation involves intention, attention, and attitude: Intention refers to the personal vision for why meditation is practiced, which may be dynamic and evolving as practice continues. Attention in mindfulness meditation “…is discerning and nonreactive, sustained and concentrated, so that we can see clearly what is arising in the present moment…” (Shapiro & Carlson, 2009, p. 10). Attitude refers to qualities of openness, acceptance, curiosity, and affection in the attention that is brought to present experience.
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Many investigators use various forms of cognitive and attentional tasks to make inferences about mindfulness. In a recent example, Morrison, Goolsarran, Rogers, & Jha (2014) examined a brief program of mindfulness training with university students on measures of attention and working memory. Before and after seven hours of mindfulness training, students were given tasks designed to probe various aspects of attention and working memory. They found gains in overall accuracy on a sustained attention to response task (SART), along with decreased reaction time variability, compared with a wait list control group. They also found increases in self-reported “on-task” performance. They did not find any significant differences between groups on the working memory tasks.
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XII. Conclusions
We have reviewed a number of critical conceptual and methodological issues that are germane to research on mindfulness-based interventions and other meditation research. We highlighted the need for a rich description of the intervention and how and by whom it is being taught. We have also underscored the complexity of measuring mindfulness and the variations we might expect in measuring mindfulness in novice versus experienced mindfulness practitioners. The possibility of using behavioral indices to measure mindfulness was considered and some promising possibilities are on the horizon. We concluded that using any single physiological or biological measure at this point in time is likely premature since extant data indicate that the construct cannot be captured in any simple single measure. The issue of control groups was discussed and this represents a thorny problem for research in this area. Double-blind placebo controlled trials are not possible for mindfulness interventions. Alternative strategies involving active comparison conditions are needed and several examples were provided, including the dual-blind design in which the participant is unaware of which intervention is the focus of the research and the examiners collecting the data are unaware to which group each participant has been assigned. Finally considerations regarding study design and statistical issues were discussed, some of which are common to other types of clinical and individual differences research.
It is important to underscore the fact that research in this area is still in its infancy though good progress has been made over the past decade. We believe that the quality of research in this area will improve now that more sophisticated designs have recently been published. There are still many questions that remain to be addressed and it is important for both the research community and policy makers to understand that although there is much excitement about this area, there are still very few methodologically rigorous studies that demonstrate the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions in either the treatment of specific diseases or in the promotion of well-being. With the incorporation of some of the conceptual and methodological desiderata we showcase above, we anticipate a vibrant and productive period for scientific research on meditation in the future.
References
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| Author | volume | Date Value | title | type | journal | titleUrl | doi | note | year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 ConceptualandMethodologicalIssu | Richard J. Davidson Alfred W. Kaszniak | Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Research on Mindfulness and Meditation. | 2015 |