Dispositional Mindfulness and Bias in Self-theories

Abstract

Mindfulness is theorized to encourage a dispositional quality of nonjudgmental awareness that is incongruent with emotional and cognitive bias. Recent empirical investigations offer evidence supporting the putative negative association between dispositional mindfulness and bias. The present study aimed to test the hypothesized negative relationship between dispositional mindfulness and extreme or biased self-theories with respect to implicit beliefs about the variability of personality and intelligence. One hundred sixty-three young adults completed a measure of dispositional mindfulness followed by a self-theories implicit association test. Results indicate that respondents with less biased self-theories reported higher levels of dispositional mindfulness relative to respondents with more biased beliefs about the variability of intelligence and personality. These findings suggest that mindful individuals may adopt less biased characterizations of the self and maintain self-concepts that are less influenced by past associations or preconceived notions.