Relevance of mindfulness to developing interpersonal skills

Relevance of heedfulness to instruction inter in the flesh(predicate) skillsheedfulness as a psychological concept foot be conceptualised as a present centred, non elaborative and non judgemental sensation in which in all of the individuals sensations, feelings and thoughts that atomic number 18 present in their field of attending is taken broadsheet of and accepted (Bishop et al, 2004). Hargie (2006) states that behaviour that an individual pursues consciously bed be utter to be mindful, while automatic behaviour must be define as mindless. Bishop et al go on to state that heedfulness in contemporary psychology has been adopted as an nestle for increasing sensory faculty and responding skilfully to mental processes that contri thate to excited distress and maladaptive behaviour. (p.230). they provoke that operationalising the concept requires that the definition have two components, and that previous definitions do non adequately capture the nature of the concept. T he first requires the individual to regulate their attentional mechanisms so that they focus on immediate and present love, which bequeath stick step to the fore them to recognise internal events that occur in the present. This necessarily involves the individuals conscious aw atomic number 18ness of their own feelings and thoughts as fountainhead as their surroundings. A result of this stern be metacognitive abilities that allow them to control their powers of concentration. The plunk for component of their definition of mindfulness requires the individual to adopt a certain lovely of druthers towards their experience as they occur immediately, which will be characterised by exposedness, curiosity and bankers acceptance. This orientation component requires the individual to accept their mindstream, to maintain a curious and open attitude, and to think in terms of different categories. Wiemann, Greene and Burleson (2003) none that within the circumstance of interpersona l encounters, mindfulness implies change magnitude attention to each individuals characteristics in advanced encounters. They suggest that this is particularly burning(prenominal) in intercultural settings beca implement in these, it is much important to try to be prepared for unexpected behaviour from some others. This essay will trust the relationship amongst mindfulness and interpersonal behaviour, including relationships as well as whether mindfulness shtup help people to improve their interpersonal skills.With regard to the relationship between mindfulness and interpersonal behaviour, Brown, Ryan and Creswell (2007) point off that explore into the influence of mindfulness has only begun comparatively recently, and has overly think largely on how it weed enhance romantic relationships. For example, Welwood (1996) proposed that mindfulness encourages connection, meanness and attunement in these kinds of relationships. Goleman (2006) put up that it endure increase the individuals ability to pay attention to the content of their partners communication and also to be aware of their non-verbal behaviour and affectional tone. Brown et al conclude that this scholarship suggests that mindfulness may win interaction styles that support healthy relationship functioning and enhance overall relationship quality. (p. 225). Barnes et al (2007) used the Mindful Attention Awareness crustal plate (Carlson Brown, 2005 Brown Ryan, 2003), a self- report measure of mindfulness, to look at the relationship between mindfulness and relationship satisfaction. They found that increased mindfulness on the outstrip predicted increased satisfaction in relationships as well as more capacity to respond to relationship stress in a inferential manner. The study was carried out in a assay of dating couples who were not distressed. One possible criticism is that the study relied on self report and there was a danger of participants responding to face validity in ne arly of the questions. These concerns were addressed to a certain extent in a second study, using a paradigm of conflict discussion. The authors found that scores on the heedfulness Attention Awareness scurf predicted lower scores of emotional stress to conflict. This effect in turn was explained by the fact that they experient less emotional stress in advance of the discussion, indicating that mindfulness in reality helps protect the couple from stress, and does not just have a undecomposable buffering effect. Objective raters also found that mindfulness was associated with intermit quality of communication, which is poseed with Tickle Degnan and Rosenthals (1990) purpose that sustained attention in social exchanges is native for rapport to be established. More generally, Baer et al (2006) fount that there was a compulsory association between mindfulness and aspects of emotional intelligence, which are cogitate to improved social skills (see also Brown Ryan, 2003). This can lead to better perspective taking, response patterns that are cooperative and increased satisfaction in marital partners (Schutte et al, 2001). Brown and Kasser (2005 see also Brown Ryan, 2003 2004) found that mindfulness as measured by the mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale had a positive association with, or even predicted, a sentiency of interpersonal closeness and relatedness. This suggests that mindfulness plays a role in sustenance social connections, which can be considered a fundamental psychological invite (Deci Ryan, 1991). However, this proposition must be tested and confirmed by come on research.Furthermore, incipient intervention studies also support the notion that mindfulness has a beneficial role in relationships. Carson et al (2004) adapted the extant Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programme (Kabat Zinn, 1982) to a couples based intervention, which was named Mindfulness Based Relationship Enhancement. They found that, compared to control couples, those who undertook the intervention showed significantly increased partner acceptance, autonomy, and relationship satisfaction, and significantly reduces relationship and personal distress. These results held both post-test and at a follow up carried out three months later. All couples in the study were non distressed. This indicates that increased mindfulness can lead to positive take in terms of interpersonal behaviour.Burgoon, Berger and Waldron (2000)argue that in order to properly consider how mindfulness can help to address social issues, it is necessary to set the features that characterise the communication context, the individuals communicating, or the messages cosmos communicated that have the potential to increase mindfulness. Langer (1978) and subsequent authors (e.g. Hewes Graham, 1989 Schul Burnstein, 1998) have identified a number of situations that prompt individuals to present more thoughtful behaviour. These include new situations, new formats for communicat ion, and situations that are uninvolving. Waldron (1997) went on to study conversations and found that some of the proposed mindfulness prompts were indeed manifested therein. Conversations that included this kind of behaviour had associated patterns of behaviour that included more questioning, longer turns taken in the conversation, calls for evidence to be given and more interruption, which all indicate that efforts are being made to take control of the situation. However, it should be noted that this approach may not necessarily be considered the best for systematically examining the use of mindfulness prompts due to the fairly small number of conversations that were recorded.Dekeyser et al (2008) also looked at the relationship between mindfulness and interpersonal performance and feelings. Firstly, they looked at the factor structure and reliability of a mindfulness measure, the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (Baer et al, 2004), which is also based on self report. The y used a sample of Psychology students and parents, all of whom spoke Dutch. They were able to replicate Baer et als finding in terms of the four factors that underlie mindfulness, which are characterised as Describe, Observe, feature without Judgement and Act with Awareness. These were invariant through the samples tested, and all of these aspects of mindfulness displayed positive associations with self expression during a variety of social situations. Additionally, an increased mark towards mindful observation was correlated with higher levels of empathy. The other factors of acting with awareness, acceptance without judgement and mindful explanation were correlated with more accurate description and identification of emotions and feelings, lower social anxiety, increased body satisfaction and lowered contagion of distress. Thus, this study indicates that several factors, many of which are highly personal in nature, are associated with aspects of mindfulness. This further stren gthens the notion that high levels of mindfulness are associated with a number of positive psychological outcomes, although the nature of this relationship is not clear. It must be remembered that correlation in no way infers cause and it is possible that mindfulness exerts more of a moderating or mediating effect.Furthermore, mindfulness may have some clinical applications, such as the relatively recent use of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which is a word programme that was originally devised in order to help to manage inveterate pain (Kabat Zinn, Lipworth et al, 1987 Kabat Zinn, Lipworth Burney, 1985). The treatment programme is presently used in order to help to reduce the psychological morbidity that comes along with chronic infirmityes, as well as in the treatment of behavioural and emotional disorders (Kabat Zinn, 1998). Bishop (2002) has pointed out that the use of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction has increased in terms of popularity despite the fact that there h as been no rigorous scientific evaluation of the treatment programme. However, clinical trials have begun to be carried out. Reibel, Greenson et al (2001) found significant reductions of psychological morbidity in patients with a medical illness using the programme (see also Carlson, Ursuliak et al, 2001 Speca, Carlson et al, 2000). Williams, Kolar et al (2001) also found that Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction helped to increase individuals psychological well being and mitigate stress in samples that were not clinical (see also Shapiro, Schwartz Bonner, 1998 Astin, 1997).In conclusion, the nature of mindfulness is complex and appears to have two separate but interconnected components attention and orientation. Mindfulness is related to interpersonal behaviour because it can promote styles of interaction that lead to improved social behaviour and can also have a positive influence on relationships with others. Indeed, the research indicates that mindfulness can have a protective ca pacity against social stress, although how it does this is not yet clear. Furthermore, early research indicates that interventions that encourage mindfulness can not only reduce stress following illness, but can also have positive impacts on interpersonal relationships. Although the field is relatively young, research is showing more and more positive aspects of mindfulness for interpersonal skills and behaviour. One possible future direction for research would be the development of a more objective way of measuring mindfulness. At present, virtually studies rely on self-report, which is influenced by the participants concept of themselves. Exploratory studies looking for other indices of mindfulness, perhaps using galvanic skin response, event related potentials or functional magnetic resonance imaging may be of use.