Articles Analysis

Articles Analysis

Articles Analysis

Article 1: Mindfulness: theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects.

Main Arguments and Evidence

Interest in mindfulness and its enhancement has burgeoned in recent years. In this article, author discusses in detail the nature of mindfulness and its relation to other, established theories of attention and awareness in day-to-day life. Author then examine theory and evidence for the role of mindfulness in curtailing negative functioning and enhancing positive outcomes in several important life domains, including mental health, physical health, behavioral regulation, and interpersonal relationships. The processes through which mindfulness is theorized to have its beneficial effects are then discussed, along with proposed directions for theoretical development and empirical research (Brown etal, 2007).

After reviewing the article it is analyzed that this article has five aims. First, author seeks to define and characterize mindfulness, primarily by drawing upon both Buddhist psychological traditions and the developing scholarship within empirical psychology. For many readers, the concept of mindfulness will be unfamiliar given its novelty in contemporary psycho-logical discourse. The importance of this first aim also lies in the fact that to date, psychological research in mindfulness has primarily been focused on the effects of mindfulness training, usually as part of a clinical treatment package, and less so on understanding the meaning and expression of mindfulness itself (Shapiro et al, 2007).

The second aim of the article is to place the concept of mindfulness in the context of other, established theoretical treatments of attention and awareness in daily life. The third aim is to provide an overview of the salutary effects of mindfulness and the interventions designed to enhance it. Mindfulness is theorized to have widespread effects on human functioning and behavior and, drawing upon a burgeoning research literature that uses several distinct methodologies, author attempt to demonstrate the influence of mindfulness on mental health and well-being, physical health, self-regulation, and interpersonal behavior (Williams et al, 2006).

Author fourth aim is to outline key processes that may explain these positive effects of mindfulness. In doing so, author draw upon theory and research suggesting that it does so in various ways that act to “quiet” the ego and thereby lessen the intra-and inter-personal costs that self-identification spawns. Finally, author will point out several key areas of obscurity concerning mindfulness and its effects and will propose avenues for future research in this developing area of inquiry (Shapiro et al, 2007).

Strengths and Weaknesses

This brief review illustrates a growing convergence of findings across multiple methodologies, all of which point to the provisional conclusion that mindfulness and its cultivation support healthy, adaptive human functioning. The field of mindfulness studies is still in its early stages, and concomitant with its youth, the literature suffers from a number of methodological limitations. Instruments designed to assess mindful-ness are a recent addition to the literature, and to date, few studies have tested whether these measures show temporal predictions of relevant outcomes. Induction studies are still few and their effect sizes have been relatively small (Brown etal, ...