A shift in perspective: Decentering through mindful attention to imagined stressful events
Open accessAbstract
Ruminative thoughts about a stressful event can seem subjectively real, as if the imagined event were happening in the moment. One possibility is that this subjective realism results from simulating the self as engaged in the stressful event (immersion). If so, then the process of decentering—disengaging the self from the event—should reduce the subjective realism associated with immersion, and therefore perceived stressfulness. To assess this account of decentering, we taught non-meditators a strategy for disengaging from imagined events, simply viewing these events as transient mental states (mindful attention). In a subsequent neuroimaging session, participants imagined stressful and non-stressful events, while either immersing themselves or adopting mindful attention. In conjunction analyses, mindful attention down-regulated the processing of stressful events relative to baseline, whereas immersion up-regulated their processing. In direct contrasts between mindful attention and immersion, mindful attention showed greater activity in brain areas associated with perspective shifting and effortful attention, whereas immersion showed greater activity in areas associated with self-processing and visceral states. These results suggest that mindful attention produces decentering by disengaging embodied senses of self from imagined situations so that affect does not develop.
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Lebois et al. (2015) and Duncan et al. (2021) identified attention regulation/decentering as a constructive coping mechanism which supported stress regulation in university students.
“The role that attention regulation/decentering could play in reduced stress has been identified by both Lebois et al. (2015) and Duncan et al. (2021) as a constructive coping mechanism which supported stress regulation in university students.”
From Examining Potential Psychological Protective and Risk Factors for Stress and Burnout in Social Workers. (2025) · cites this paper as Lebois et al., 2015
In line with previous research, the current study provided supporting evidence for the effectiveness of this mindfulness component compared to a sham intervention.
“In short, in line with previous research (Bernstein et al., 2015; Hoge et al., 2015; Lebois et al., 2015), the current study provided supporting evidence for the effectiveness of this mindfulness component compared to a sham intervention.”
From Mindfulness Effects on Anxiety: Disentangling the Role of Decentering and Treatment Expectations (2024) · cites this paper as Lebois et al., 2015
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“Several researchers have also made this claim (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Brown et al., 2007; Kabat-Zinn, 2003; Taylor et al., 2011).”
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Mindful Attention Prevents Mindless Impulses
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“In Dickenson et al. (2013), for example, a brief breath-focused meditation recruited more areas involved in internal state awareness (insula) and in attentional control and shifting (dlPFC, angular gyrus (AG)) compared to a mind wandering condition, especially in participants high in trait…”
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Self-citation
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Effects of Brief Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Health-Related Outcomes: a Systematic Review
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Meditation, stress processes, and telomere biology
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“The role that attention regulation/decentering could play in reduced stress has been identified by both Lebois et al. (2015) and Duncan et al. (2021) as a constructive coping mechanism which supported stress regulation in university students.”
Mindfulness Effects on Anxiety: Disentangling the Role of Decentering and Treatment Expectations
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- Authors
- Lebois, L. A. M., Papies, E. K., Gopinath, K., Cabanban, R., Quigley, K. S., Krishnamurthy, V., Barrett, L. F., & Barsalou, L. W.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Emory University (US)
- Northeastern University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lebois, Lauren A.M.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Neuropsychologia
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-08
- Volume
- 75
- Pages
- 505-524
- ISSN
- 0028-3932 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4631025
- OpenAlex
- W1622770599
- Semantic Scholar
- 13b340ed489f7ad81adef0dd48c1884d7df085f8
- Cited by
- 114
- References
- 127
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 9.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Neuropsychologia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, United States (1 F31 AT007130-01, 5 F31 AT007130-02)
- National Institute of Health Director's Pioneer Award (DPI OD003312)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Keywords
- decentering, mindful attention, rumination, immersion, perspective shift, self-processing, affect, perceived stress, meditation training
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Attention, Brain, Female, Humans, Imagination, Male, Stress, Psychological, Meditation, Young Adult, Mindfulness
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
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