Introduction
Interventions which use training in meditation to target psychiatric symptoms have become more and more widespread (e.g., Diodonna
2009), and research has demonstrated their effectiveness in a wide range of conditions (Hoffman et al.
2010). With this development, there is now an increased interest in learning about the mechanisms through which such interventions exert their effects. Knowing about these mechanisms is important to inform the incremental development of mindfulness-based interventions for different patient groups and mirrors developments in psychotherapy research in general, where researchers have become increasingly interested in investigating the course and mechanisms of change (Hayes et al.
2007).
Interestingly, psychotherapy research has shown that change is not always linear (Hayes et al.
2007), but often occurs in a discontinuous manner following episodes of destabilization in which symptoms are likely to show a transient worsening. Such trajectories seem particularly characteristic of treatments that involve elements of exposure—where avoidance is reduced for new learning experiences to become available. Interventions that use mindfulness meditation may produce similar patterns of change since exposure to inner experience is hypothesized to be one of the mechanisms through which they exert their effects. Indeed, the idea of working with hindrances during practice reflects the belief that destabilizing experiences are an important part of the transformative work of meditation.
Clinically, it is important to learn more about discontinuities in psychological change during psychotherapy for two reasons. Firstly, if treatment involves destabilizing effects that are too strong, these effects can easily undermine motivation. There is some evidence to suggest that initial reactions to meditation may be counterintuitive and that in groups with certain cognitive profiles, drop out from meditation-based treatment can be significant. In particular, individuals with a history of depression who are high in brooding appear to respond negatively when initially exposed to loving-kindness meditation (Barnhofer et al.
2010) and to drop out early from mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (Crane and Williams
2010), perhaps because initial experiences of meditation are too challenging. Knowing more about destabilizing effects may help to identify those individuals who are likely to need extra support to engage, who paradoxically might exactly be those who have the most to gain in the long term, and find ways of supporting participants in balancing these challenges. Secondly, research may help to see more clearly the nature of destabilizing effects. This is important since many of the effects of meditation arise in an implicit rather than explicit manner. For example, in our previous research, we have found changes in goal representations following an 8-week meditation course although goals were not addressed explicitly at any point in the course. Our aim in the current studies was to explore discontinuities in change by comparing the initial effects of short guided meditations with effects following several weeks’ practice as part of a mindfulness-based intervention.
Specifically, this paper explores the impact of mindfulness and meditation on self-regulation in relation to important life goals. Goals represent desired states, outcomes, or concepts which structure and guide behavior (e.g., Carver and Scheier
1998). Models of self-regulation typically suggest that goals are organized hierarchically, with abstract high-order goals placed at the top, goals which describe more specific desired outcomes intermediate, and goals which define concrete action steps located at the bottom of the hierarchy (e.g., Martin and Tesser
1989). While some links within the goal hierarchy are essential for successful goal pursuit (e.g., I must attend university on a regular basis in order to achieve the goal of obtaining a degree), it is suggested that individuals differ in the extent to which achievement of very high order, self-defining goals (e.g., happiness, self-worth, and fulfillment) is regarded as contingent on the attainment of
particular lower order, more concrete goals. Specifically, Street (
2001) introduced the term
conditional goal setting (CGS) to refer to the tendency of some people to regard happiness and other similar high-order goals, as pursuable and achievable through attainment of particular lower-order outcomes (e.g., I can only be happy
if…. I am financially secure, doing well at work, in a romantic relationship).
The concept of conditional goal setting shares many similarities with the theory of goal linking developed by McIntosh and colleagues (e.g., McIntosh et al.
1995). In both cases, it is suggested that because certain goals are over-valued as routes through which happiness can be achieved, an individual becomes vulnerable to depression. In particular, people who
link goals, or set
conditional goals, are regarded as being more likely to experience high levels of rumination and negative affect when goal progress falters because threats to even relatively low-order goals have implications for the likelihood of achieving high-order goals (e.g., McIntosh et al.
2009). People may also show a tendency to put happiness on hold, “when I achieve … I will be happy” while particular goals are being pursued which may act to undermine day-to-day well-being (Street
2001).
Consistent with the above suggestions, previous studies have shown that CGS is correlated with symptoms of depression in students (e.g., Street
2001), recently diagnosed cancer patients (Street
2003) and children (Street et al.
2003) as well as with levels of hopelessness amongst people with depression (Hadley and MacLeod
2010). It has also been demonstrated that people who engage in goal linking show higher levels of stress when their goals are challenged (McIntosh
1997). For example, the linking of the goal of biological parenthood to happiness and fulfillment is associated with greater emotional distress in infertile couples (Brothers and Maddux
2003), while dispositional goal linking assessed at a one time point predicts level of depression and physical symptoms in the context of hassles at least 2 weeks later (McIntosh et al.
1995). Finally, those who view their self-esteem as contingent upon particular achievements respond when these achievements are threatened with attempts at self-esteem preservation, at the expense of more productive goal-directed behavior (Crocker et al.
2006), again suggesting that setting conditional or linked goals may undermine optimum self-regulation. These findings together suggest that reducing levels of CGS may be helpful for people in general, and for people who suffer from depression in particular.
Although the factors determining level of conditional goal setting are not well established, recent research suggests that high levels of conditional goal setting are linked to lower levels of dispositional mindfulness in depressed patients (Crane et al.
2010). Dispositional mindfulness can be conceptualized as a trait-like variable, reflecting the extent to which people naturally orient their attention and awareness towards ongoing, moment to moment experiences and bring attitudes of acceptance, self-compassion and non-judgment to these (e.g., Baer et al.
2006,
2008). Although there are likely to be individual differences in trait mindfulness, it is also suggested both within the Buddhist tradition, and by proponents of clinical interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (Kabat-Zinn
1990) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (Segal et al.
2002), that levels of mindfulness can be increased through meditation training.
One possibility is that treatments such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (Segal et al.
2002), which aim to increase levels of mindfulness, may act in part by modifying patients’ conditional goal setting tendencies. For example, Segal et al. argue that mindful awareness enables people to shift from an analytical “doing” mode of mind, dominated by a focus on discrepancies between current states and desired goals, to a more experiential “being” mode of mind, in which present moment experience predominates. In the being mode, which is explicitly cultivated in the meditative state, but which is thought to gradually become more and more available in everyday life with sustained practice, individuals are able to observe their own mental processes from a decentered perspective. Previous research has suggested that increases in dispositional mindfulness are associated with a letting go of maladaptive ideal self guides (Crane et al.
2008). It is plausible that increased mindfulness may also enable individuals to relate more flexibly to conditional goals and gain insight into the maladaptive consequences of conditional goal setting. Indeed, Shapiro et al. (
2006) suggest that the cultivation of mindfulness enables individuals to “practice acceptance, kindness & openness even when what is occurring in the field of experience is contrary to deeply held wishes or expectations” (p. 377). This ability to remain open and accepting to the possibility of alternative sources of fulfillment if particular desired goals become unattainable is fundamentally incompatible with conditional goal setting, in which particular goals are seen as the
only available path to fulfillment. Thus, cultivating mindfulness may gradually undermine conditional goal setting tendencies.
There are numerous forms of meditation practice. Two of the more commonly researched are mindfulness of breathing and loving-kindness meditation. Mindfulness of breathing is used to cultivate awareness and acceptance of sensory experiences and internal states including thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. All experiences are accepted, and there is no intention to cultivate a particular emotional state. Loving-kindness meditation, in contrast, focuses on the cultivation of unconditional positive emotional states, such as kindness and compassion, directed both towards the self and towards others Salzberg (
2002). Both forms of practice might be expected to have an impact on CGS in the longer term, mindfulness of breathing by increasing individuals’ ability to observe and decenter from their tendency to view happiness as conditional upon particular achievements or goals, and loving-kindness practice by giving individuals direct experience of their ability to cultivate a sense of joy and well-being independently of external circumstances (see Fredrickson et al.
2008, for a study exploring the cumulative effects of loving-kindness practice).
The first study reported here explores the impact of mindfulness training on conditional goal setting. We examined whether a course of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) (Segal et al.
2002), which was supplemented by loving-kindness meditation practice towards the end of the course, led to changes in dispositional mindfulness or conditional goal setting over a 3–4-month period. This study used data from a sub-sample of the depressed patients who participated in Crane et al. (
2010) and were randomized to a trial of MBCT for chronic/recurrent depression (Barnhofer et al.
2009). We hypothesized that individuals who had received treatment with MBCT would show greater reductions in CGS than those allocated to the waitlist condition and that changes in CGS over the 3–4-month period would be correlated with changes in dispositional mindfulness across the sample as a whole. We present the findings of study 1 below, before turning to study 2, a laboratory-based study that examined the impact of brief periods of meditation on conditional goal setting and the extent to which individual differences in a trait measure of goal-related self-regulation might influence initial responses to meditation practice.