The Comprehensive Mindfulness Experience: A Typological Approach to the Potential Benefits of Mindfulness for Dealing with Motivational Conflicts

We wanted to address two critical limitations of research on mindfulness and motivational conflict, by (a) distinguishing between conflict experiences and conflict reactivity and (b) by applying a typological approach, exploring natural combinations of two core qualities of (state) mindfulness: present moment awareness and a nonjudgmental stance. Using an experience-sampling (ES) design (N = 107 on the personal and 3862 at the observational level) with baseline and posttest measures of general affective wellbeing, we found that between-person differences in everyday conflict reactivity (i.e., perseverative and self-evaluative reactions toward conflict experiences) but not in conflict experiences per se (i.e., feeling that one wants to or should do something else) predicted impaired affective well-being after the ES period.
Furthermore, multilevel latent profile analysis showed that momentary conflict reactivity was lowest when participants reported to be both momentarily aware and nonjudgmental, mirroring the comprehensive mindfulness experience. These effects existed while controlling for baseline and accompanying affect as well as for conflict intensity, strengthening the idea that motivational conflict itself is not a critical instance of self-regulation failure and that being mindful may contribute to remain functionally efficient and psychological well-adjusted.