A brief mindfulness exercise promotes the correspondence between the implicit affiliation motive and goal setting

Strick, M. and Papies, E. K. (2017) A brief mindfulness exercise promotes the correspondence between the implicit affiliation motive and goal setting. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(5), pp. 623-637. (doi: 10.1177/0146167217693611) (PMID:28903636) (PMCID:PMC5414900)

Abstract

People often choose to pursue goals that are dissociated from their implicit motives, which jeopardizes their motivation and well-being. We hypothesized that mindfulness may attenuate this dissociation to the degree that it increases sensitivity to internal cues that signal one’s implicit preferences. We tested this hypothesis with a longitudinal repeated measures experiment. In Session 1, participants’ implicit affiliation motive was assessed. In Session 2, half of the participants completed a mindfulness exercise while the other half completed a control task before indicating their motivation toward pursuing affiliation and nonaffiliation goals. In Session 3, this procedure was repeated with reversed assignment to conditions. The results confirmed our hypothesis that, irrespective of the order of the conditions, the implicit affiliation motive predicted a preference to pursue affiliation goals immediately after the mindfulness exercise, but not after the control task. We discuss implications of these findings for satisfaction and well-being.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Papies, Dr Esther
• Authors: Strick, M., and Papies, E. K.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
• Journal Name: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• ISSN: 0146-1672
• ISSN (Online): 1552-7433
• Published Online: 01 March 2017
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 The Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc
• First Published: First published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 43(5): 623-637
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license