Daily Mindful Responding Mediates the Effect of Meditation Practice on Stress and Mood: The Role of Practice Duration and Adherence.

OBJECTIVE: Although meditation practice is an important component of many mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), empirical findings of its effects on psychological functioning are mixed and the mechanisms for the effects remain unclear. Responding with mindfulness (i.e., returning one's attention back to a nonjudgmental, present-oriented awareness) is a fundamental skill practiced in meditations. With repeated meditation practice, this skill is thought to become internalized and be applied to one's daily life. We thus hypothesized that the extent to which individuals responded to daily events with mindfulness would mediate the effects of meditation practice (instance, duration, and adherence to instructions) on psychological well-being. METHOD: Using a daily diary methodology, we tracked the meditation practice, use of mindful responding during the day, and psychological outcomes (perceived stress, negative and positive affect) of 117 mindfulness-based stress reduction program participants. RESULTS: We found that on days when participants meditated, they responded with greater mindfulness to daily events, which accounted for the beneficial effects of meditating on psychological outcomes. Furthermore, findings suggest that on meditation days, longer and more closely adhered meditation practices were independently associated with increases in mindful responding, which in turn were associated with better psychological outcomes. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that regular, longer, and more closely adhered meditation practice is an important component of MBIs, in part because it leads to responding more mindfully in daily life, which promotes well-being.

Rough-and-tumble play and the regulation of aggression: an observational study of father-child play dyads.

Rough-and-tumble play (RTP) is a common form of play between fathers and children. It has been suggested that RTP can contribute to the development of selfregulation. This study addressed the hypothesis that the frequency of father-child RTP is related to the frequency of physically aggressive behavior in early childhood. This relationship was expected to be moderated by the dominance relationship between father and son during play. Eighty-five children between the ages of 2 and 6 years were videotaped during a free-play session with their fathers in their homes and questionnaire data was collected about father-child RTP frequency during the past year. The play dyads were rated for the degree to which the father dominated play interactions. A significant statistical interaction revealed that RTP frequency was associated with higher levels of physical aggression in children whose fathers were less dominant. These results indicate that RTP is indeed related to physical aggression, though this relationship is moderated by the degree to which the father is a dominant playmate.

Complexity management theory: motivation for ideological rigidity and social conflict.

We are doomed to formulate conceptual structures that are much simpler than the complex phenomena they are attempting to account for. These simple conceptual structures shield us, pragmatically, from real-world complexity, but also fail, frequently, as some aspect of what we did not take into consideration makes itself manifest. The failure of our concepts dysregulates our emotions and generates anxiety, necessarily, as the unconstrained world is challenging and dangerous. Such dysregulation can turn us into rigid, totalitarian dogmatists, as we strive to maintain the structure of our no longer valid beliefs. Alternatively, we can face the underlying complexity of experience, voluntarily, gather new information, and recast and reconfigure the structures that underly our habitable worlds.