Brief meditation and the interaction between emotional interference and anxiety

• Autor(a) principal: Menezes, Carolina Baptista
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Pereira, Mirtes, Mocaiber, Izabela, Bizarro, Lisiane
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Psicologia (Universidade de Brasília. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/revistaptp/article/view/18019
• topic: Psicologia Cognitiva; Regulação Emocional; Meditação; Interferência emocional; Ansiedade; Processos autorregulatórios; Meditation; Emotional interference; Anxiety; Self-regulatory processes

This pilot study assessed the effects of a 5-day focused meditation training on the interplay between emotional interference and anxiety in a non clinical sample randomized into two groups (experimental=13; control=18). Emotional interference was indexed comparing the reaction times in an attentional task with negative or neutral distracting images. Anxiety experienced during the task was also assessed through self-report. Only in the control group higher anxiety levels interacted with greater emotional interference and a worse evaluation of valence and arousal of emotional images. These preliminary findings suggest that meditation may help modulating anxiety effects on bias to negative stimuli, and that even a short training may facilitate self-regulatory processes.