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Conceptual and methodological issues in research on mindfulness and meditation.
Open accessAbstract
Both basic science and clinical research on mindfulness, meditation, and related constructs have dramatically increased in recent years. However, interpretation of these research results has been challenging. The present article addresses unique conceptual and methodological problems posed by research in this area. Included among the key topics is the role of first-person experience and how it can be best studied, the challenges posed by intervention research designs in which true double-blinding is not possible, the nature of control and comparison conditions for research that includes mindfulness or other meditation-based interventions, issues in the adequate description of mindfulness and related trainings and interventions, the question of how mindfulness can be measured, questions regarding what can and cannot be inferred from self-report measures, and considerations regarding the structure of study design and data analyses. Most of these topics are germane to both basic and clinical research studies and have important bearing on the future scientific understanding of mindfulness and meditation.
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“ACM was designed to control for nonspecific aspects of meditation—such as dedicated self‐care time, structured practice, and expectation of benefit—while excluding explicit mindfulness training (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Kinser & Robins, 2013).”
From The effects of mindfulness meditation on burnout in clinical genetic counselors: A three-arm randomized controlled trial (2026) · cites this paper as Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015
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“These findings need to be interpreted with caution, given that they arise from secondary analyses, and because it has been well demonstrated that comparisons to a passive control can both overestimate effect sizes and identify effectiveness erroneously (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Goldberg et al., 2022; Kinser & Robins, 2013).”
From The effects of mindfulness meditation on burnout in clinical genetic counselors: A three-arm randomized controlled trial (2026) · cites this paper as Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015
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“Participants of the study were not blinded regarding which group (MBSR or ACT) they belong to.They were, however, blinded to which treatment group was the focus of the study and the different expected effects of each group as recommended by Davidson & Kaszniak (2015).”
From Effects of mindfulness meditation and Acceptance and commitment therapy in patients with obstructive sleep apnea with residual excessive sleepiness: A randomized controlled pilot study (2023) · cites this paper as Davidson & Kaszniak (2015)
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“In mindfulness-based programs, participants are explicitly introduced to concepts and practices that overlap with the items they later complete, which increases the risk of demand characteristics and responses shaped by perceived expectations (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Ghanbari Noshari et al., 2023).”
From Measuring mindfulness: A systematic review and evaluation of self-report mindfulness scales (2026) · cites this paper as Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015
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“However, these have been challenging to design and no gold standard active control for MM exists (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Kinser & Robins, 2013).”
From The effects of mindfulness meditation on burnout in clinical genetic counselors: A three-arm randomized controlled trial (2026) · cites this paper as Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015
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“Despite these promising findings, a significant limitation of MM research is the reliance on passive control groups, which fail to control for nonspecific factors such as expectancy effects or structured self‐care time (Bishop, 2002; Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Goldberg et al., 2017, 2019).”
From The effects of mindfulness meditation on burnout in clinical genetic counselors: A three-arm randomized controlled trial (2026) · cites this paper as Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015
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“Both fields of psychedelics and meditation are marked by strong bias effects [119, 120], so reported in studies beneficial effects can be overestimated.”
From Mindfulness meditation and psychedelics: potential synergies and commonalities (2023) · cites this paper as [120]
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“However, these studies suffer from methodological limitations and thus the effects may be overstated, especially as both fields of psychedelics and meditation are characterised by strong bias effects (11, 173).”
From Examining the Potential Synergistic Effects Between Mindfulness Training and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (2021) · cites this paper as [173]
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“Yet, non-specific factors are often viewed primarily as a confound in studies of MBI mechanisms (but see33–35) and used as motivation for increasing the rigor of comparison conditions to isolate the specific effects of MBIs28,36–38.”
From A common factors perspective on mindfulness-based interventions (2022) · cites this paper as [37]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Davidson, R. J., & Kaszniak, A. W.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- ORCID
- Davidson, Richard J.
- Venue
- American Psychologist
- Published
- 2015-10
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 581-592
- ISSN
- 0003-066X (ISSN-L)
- 1935-990X
- PMC
- PMC4627495
- OpenAlex
- W2406560806
- Cited by
- 773
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2026: 44 · 2025: 69 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 87 · 2022: 86 · 2021: 91 · 2020: 86 · 2019: 87 · 2018: 66 · 2017: 50 · 2016: 30 · 2015: 4
- FWCI
- 62.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- American Psychologist (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (P01AT004952)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Keywords
- mindfulness, meditation, first-person experience, meditation-based interventions, control conditions, mindfulness measurement, self-report measures, research design, data analysis, conceptual difficulties
- MeSH terms
- Clinical Trials as Topic, Humans, Research Design, Meditation, Biomedical Research, Mindfulness
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