ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses new findings that illuminate how affect guides self-control processes, and how the cultivation of mindfulness refines the relationship between affect and self-control. Importantly, mindfulness training has been associated with enhanced executive functioning. In the laboratory, for example, meditators show less interference from conflict and make fewer errors in the Stroop task than controls. As the cultivation of mindfulness promotes the employment of a non-judgemental attention towards primary affective and sensory experiences, mindfulness training enhances affect’s ability to energize controlled processes in the service of goal-directed behaviour. In effect, mindfulness cultivates an awareness and acceptance to momentary experiences without letting any one sequence of sensations, emotions, memories, or thoughts dominate the experiential field. While enhanced awareness may bring negative affect into the forefront of consciousness and allow people to respond to it adaptively, a keen negative affect can mobilize control without conscious awareness.