The impact of mindfulness on well-being and performance in the workplace: an inclusive systematic review of the empirical literature

Work can be demanding, imposing challenges that can be detrimental to the physical and mental health of workers. Efforts are therefore underway to develop practices and initiatives that may improve occupational well-being. These include interventions based on mindfulness meditation. This paper offers a systematic review of empirical studies featuring analyses of mindfulness in occupational contexts. Databases were reviewed from the start of records to January 2016. Eligibility criteria included experimental and correlative studies of mindfulness conducted in work settings, with a variety of well-being and performance measures. A total of 153 papers met the eligibility criteria and were included in the systematic review, comprising 12,571 participants. Mindfulness was generally associated with positive outcomes in relation to most measures. However, the quality of the studies was inconsistent, so further research is needed, particularly involving high-quality randomized control trials.     

The Unravelling of Identities and Belonging: Criminal Gang Involvement of Youth from Immigrant Families

Grounded in the experiences of 30 gang-involved respondents in Calgary, this Canadian study examined criminal gang involvement of youth from immigrant families. Our analysis showed that gang-involved youth had experienced multiple, severe and prolonged personal and interpersonal challenges in all facets of their lives and that gradual disintegration of their relationships with family, school and community had resulted in the unravelling of self-concept, ethnic identity, sense of belonging and sense of citizenship and progressively propelled them towards membership in high-risk social cliques and criminal gangs. Our findings brought attention to the need for coordinated, comprehensive support for youth from immigrant families through family-based, school-based and community-based programs.     

Match-Action: The Role of Motion and Audio in Creating Global Change Blindness in Film

An everyday example of change blindness is our difficulty to detect cuts in an edited moving-image. Edit blindness (Smith & Henderson, 2008) is created by adhering to the continuity editing conventions of Hollywood, for example, coinciding a cut with a sudden onset of motion (match-action). In this study, we isolated the roles motion and audio play in limiting awareness of match-action cuts by removing motion before and/or after cuts in existing Hollywood film clips and presenting the clips with or without the original soundtrack whilst participants tried to detect cuts. Removing post-cut motion significantly decreased cut detection time and the probability of missing the cut. By comparison, removing pre-cut motion had no effect suggesting, contrary to the editing literature, that the onset of motion before a cut may not be as critical for creating edit blindness as the motion after a cut. Analysis of eye movements indicated that viewers reoriented less to new content across intact match-action cuts than shots with motion removed. Audio played a surprisingly large part in creating edit blindness with edit blindness mostly disappearing without audio. These results extend film editor intuitions and are discussed in the context of the Attentional Theory of Cinematic Continuity (Smith, 2012a).     

Why Narcissists are Unwilling to Apologize: The Role of Empathy and Guilt

We hypothesized that narcissists would be unwilling to apologize for their interpersonal transgressions, and that reduced levels of self‐reported empathy and guilt would serially mediate this effect. Narcissism is characterized by little empathy for the victim, which reduces guilt about one's transgressions. Low guilt, in turn, is associated with unwillingness to apologize. In Study 1, we assessed dispositional narcissism, empathy, guilt, and willingness to apologize. In Study 2, we assessed dispositional narcissism and obtained state measures of empathy, guilt, and willingness to apologize. In Study 3, we manipulated narcissism and collected state measures of empathy, guilt, and willingness to apologize. Narcissism was negatively associated with (Studies 1–2) and decreased (Study 3) willingness to apologize, with this link being explained (i.e., serially mediated) by low empathy and guilt. Finally, in Study 4, we showed that antagonistic narcissism (i.e., narcissistic rivalry), but not agentic narcissism (i.e., narcissistic admiration), was negatively associated with willingness to apologize and apologizing behaviour. In all, narcissists are unwilling to apologize for their transgressions, as they experience little empathy for their victims and lower guilt. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Job attitudes of workers with two jobs

This article examines the job attitudes of people who hold more than one job. Satisfaction, stress, and organizational (continuance and affective) commitment were assessed for both primary and secondary jobs for 83 full-time workers who held two jobs concurrently. Consistency between job constructs across jobs was negligible, except for continuance organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Similarity between jobs was a significant moderator of convergence (though not consistency), whereas affective disposition did not appear to affect consistency or convergence. Holders of multiple jobs had higher satisfaction, higher stress, and higher affective organizational commitment with their primary jobs compared to their secondary jobs. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that job constructs associated with the primary job were useful for explaining life outcomes, even after controlling for affective disposition. Job constructs associated with secondary jobs, however, were not useful in explaining life outcomes. Limitations of the current study as well as suggestions for future research are given.     

Performance benefits of depression: sequential decision making in a healthy sample and a clinically depressed sample

Previous research reported conflicting results concerning the influence of depression on cognitive task performance. Whereas some studies reported that depression enhances performance, other studies reported negative or null effects. These discrepant findings appear to result from task variation, as well as the severity and treatment status of participant depression. To better understand these moderating factors, we study the performance of individuals-in a complex sequential decision task similar to the secretary problem-who are nondepressed, depressed, and recovering from a major depressive episode. We find that depressed individuals perform better than do nondepressed individuals. Formal modeling of participants' decision strategies suggested that acutely depressed participants had higher thresholds for accepting options and made better choices than either healthy participants or those recovering from depression.     

Investigating Drinking via the Social Investment Hypothesis: Committed Relationship Status Moderates the Association between Educational Investment and Excessive Alcohol Consumption among College Students

A sample of 18- to 23-year-old college students (N = 183) with a heterogeneous prevalence of alcohol dependence (AD) was used to examine the relationship between normative investment and alcohol consumption. Consistent with the social investment hypothesis, AD students reported lower educational investment and less participation in committed relationships than non-AD students. The sample-wide relationship between educational investment and alcohol use was moderated by relationship status, such that students in relationships who reported high educational investment were likely to drink more than single students who reported high educational investment. This interactive effect held when controlling for sex, IQ, and a measure of self-control. The results suggest normative investment is a candidate risk factor for excessive alcohol consumption for both highly "under-committed" and "over-committed" students.     

The presence of consciousness in absence seizures

This paper examines three respects in which the study of epileptic absence seizures promises to inform our understanding of consciousness. Firstly, it has the potential to bear on debates concerning the behavioural and cognitive functions associated with consciousness. Secondly, it has the potential to illuminate the relationship between background states (or 'levels') of consciousness and the contents of consciousness. Thirdly, it has the potential to bear on our understanding of the unity of consciousness.     

Citizens in appropriate numbers: evaluating five claims about justice and population size

Abstract

While different worries about population size are present in public debates, political philosophers often take population size as given. This paper is an attempt to formulate a Rawlsian liberal egalitarian approach to population size: does it make sense to speak of ‘too few’ or ‘too many’ people from the point of view of justice? It argues that, drawing on key features of liberal egalitarian theory, several clear constraints on demographic developments – to the extent that they are under our control – can be formulated. Based on these claims, we can clarify both the grounds and content of our obligations to future generations.     

Imagining Success: Multiple Achievement Goals and the Effectiveness of Imagery

Imagery (richly imagining carrying out a task successfully) is a popular performance-enhancement tool in many domains. This experiment sought to test whether pursuing two achievement goals (vs. one) benefits performance after an imagery exercise. We examined mastery goals (aiming to improve skill level) and performance goals (aiming to outperform others) among 65 tennis players who were assigned to a mastery goal condition, a performance goal condition, or a mastery goal and performance goal condition. After reading instructions for a service task, which included the goal manipulation, participants completed 20 tennis services. They then completed an imagery exercise and, finally, completed another 20 services. Postimagery service performance was better in the dual-goal condition than in the other conditions.