Effects of Mindfulness on Psychological Health: A Review of Empirical Studies

By Shian-Ling Keng, M. Smoski, C. Robins. Clinical Psychology Review, 2011

2,699 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Within the past few decades, there has been a surge of interest in the investigation of mindfulness as a psychological construct and as a form of clinical intervention. This article reviews the empirical literature on the effects of mindfulness on psychological health. We begin with a discussion of the construct of mindfulness, differences between Buddhist and Western psychological conceptualizations of mindfulness, and how mindfulness has been integrated into Western medicine and psychology, before reviewing three areas of empirical research: cross-sectional, correlational research on the associations between mindfulness and various indicators of psychological health; intervention research on the effects of mindfulness-oriented interventions on psychological health; and laboratory-based, experimental research on the immediate effects of mindfulness inductions on emotional and behavioral functioning. We conclude that mindfulness brings about various positive psychological effects, including increased subjective well-being, reduced psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, and improved behavioral regulation. The review ends with a discussion on mechanisms of change of mindfulness interventions and suggested directions for future research.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e9d2f4714cb3cf6f61789e238e52c209843b43f9

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Health

Citations in the corpus

Review and Evaluation of Mindfulness-Based iPhone Apps (2015, background): “Mindfulness has grown in popularity in the last two decades, and there is growing evidence for its positive impact on well-being [1,2].”
Dispositional mindfulness: A critical review of construct validation research. (2016, background): “…conceptual frameworks and operational definitions of mindfulness (e.g., Bishop et al., 2004; Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007), and summarizing empirical associations with mindfulness (Chiesa & Serretti, 2009; Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004; Hofmann et al., 2010; Keng et al., 2011).”
Mechanisms of Change in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: Self-Compassion and Mindfulness as Mediators of Intervention Outcomes (2012, neutral): “For a review of the effects of MBSR on psychological health, see Keng, Smoski, and Robins (2011).”
The Difficulty of Defining Mindfulness: Current Thought and Critical Issues (2013, background): “1999) have subsequently been developed to best fit the unique features of an increasingly larger number of clinical conditions (Keng et al. 2011).”
Mind the Gap in Mindfulness Research: A Comparative Account of the Leading Schools of Thought (2013, background): “Since its inception, it has been followed by hunderds of studies (Marchand, 2012; Chiesa & Serretti, 2009; Keng et al., 2011; Grossman et al., 2004; Bohlmeijer, Prenger, Taal & Cuipers, 2010), which demonstrate its effectiveness in improving a variety of physical and psychological conditions, and in”
Mindfulness and sustainability (2014, background): “that training in mindfulness may bring about positive psychological effects” (Keng et al., 2011).”
Evaluation of a Mindfulness-based Intervention for Adolescents with Learning Disabilities and Co-occurring ADHD and Anxiety (2012, background): “Mindfulness meditation improves self-observation, selfcontrol and attention and has demonstrated clinical utility for a variety of populations (for reviews, see Baer 2003; Keng et al. 2011).”
The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation: A Meta-Analysis (2012, background): “there are a number of narrative review papers (e.g., Chiesa et al. 2011; Ivanovski & Mahli 2007; Keng et al. 2011) that looked at nonclinical populations and found evidence of positive effects of mindfulness meditation on adaptive psychological functioning as well as on the development of attentiona”
Mindfulness at Work: Positive Affect, Hope, and Optimism Mediate the Relationship Between Dispositional Mindfulness, Work Engagement, and Well-Being (2015, positive): “While a positive link between mindfulness and general psychological well-being is well established (Irving et al. 2009; Keng et al. 2011) little is known about whether mindfulness is linked to well-being in the workplace.”