Social work students frequently endure elevated levels of prolonged stress and psychological affliction that might result in serious consequences, such as development of burnout. Some experts suggest that burnout originates in the exposure to chronic interpersonal stressors in the work environment. Yet, there is emerging evidence suggesting that mindfulness practice might be beneficial in alleviating stress. Thus, the purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the relationship between mindfulness and burnout among Master of Social Work students. Burnout, mindfulness, religiosity, spirituality and their potential relationship were discussed and related to previous scholarly literature. Specifically, this study focused on testing the hypothesis that current MSW students who demonstrate higher levels of mindfulness will report less burnout, regardless of the year in the MSW program and regardless of the years of practice in human services. In addition, the hypothesis that students currently involved in direct social work practice (either outside of the MSW program, in the MSW field placement, or both) experience higher levels of burnout than students not yet practicing was scrutinized. Moreover, the hypothesis that as students progress in their studies they will exhibit progressively more burnout was explored. Finally, one of this study's goals was to explore whether patterns/relationships between the religious and spiritual beliefs and practices predict burnout levels among Master of Social Work students. Participants were mostly non-Hispanic White females, with a mean age of 35, married (or in legally recognized unions), and first year students enrolled full-time in the Direct Human Services track. Two years was the most common length of their experience in human services. They came from the metropolitan Portland area (on-campus students) and other regions of Oregon (off-site students). The mindfulness of the participants was measured with the Five Facets Mindfulness Scale and the levels of their burnout with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Study results indicated that the more mindful the MSW students were, the less burnout they reported experiencing. A large correlation of mindfulness to reduced burnout (p < .001) was found, a relationship that persisted when controlling for other significant variables through sequential regression analysis. However, neither year in the MSW program, length of practicing in human services, nor religious/spiritual affiliation and practices had any significant influence on burnout among participants. Given the results of this study demonstrated statistically significant relationships between mindfulness and burnout among social work students, it is recommended that appropriate training in mindfulness for the students (and social workers) affected by secondary trauma and burnout should be incorporated in social work education, either as a part of curricula, or in an extra-curricular training program.

A teacher's ability to foster and sustain high quality learning environments for their students relies largely on their own coping abilities and mental health. However, due to the emotionally taxing nature of their profession, teachers are at increased risk for developing elevated levels of occupational stress and burnout. To help teachers cope with their occupational stress and other negative emotions related to their occupation, mindfulness-based stress reduction programs for teachers have been introduced through schools. Evidence for the effectiveness of such programs is promising, however few studies have considered underlying mechanisms that may be driving these effects. Using data collected as part of a randomized controlled trial, this thesis examines the impact of mindfulness training on three coping resources, namely, somatic body awareness, executive function, and emotion regulation. Additionally, this thesis examines whether development of these resources translate into improvements in teachers' occupational well-being--specifically indicated through reductions in their anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout. Results suggest that the mindfulness training significantly improves teachers' somatic body awareness, with evidence for improvements in teachers' emotion regulation reappraisal as well. Additionally, some mediation results were promising, however, no significant mediations were found for any of the coping resources on any of the well-being outcomes for teachers. By addressing these topics, the results of this thesis contribute to the current field's understanding of how mindfulness training works to improve well-being in teachers.

This study investigated the two research questions, 1) what are the relationships among the pretest latent variables mindfulness, stress, and flourishing and the manifest variables GPA and retention in first-year college students in a first-year experience seminar and 2) will there be differences in mindfulness, stress, flourishing, GPA, and retention between groups of students in a first-year experience seminar who received a brief mindfulness intervention and those who did not? To answer these questions, the author analyzed secondary data collected from 373 first-year college students at a large public research university who took Introduction to the University (UNIV 101). The study was a repeated-measures quasi-experimental nonequivalent control groups design. Eighteen instructors across 35 class sections volunteered to provide the intervention in their class, 248 first-year students (66%) made up the mindfulness group, and 125 first-year students (35%) made up the comparison group. Women made up 70% (n = 261) of the sample and males made up 30% (n = 112). Pretests and posttests included demographics, the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Flourishing Scale (FS), and questions asking about prior mindfulness experience (pretest) and current and potential future practices (posttest). Chi-squared tests and t-tests evaluated variances between groups in demographics and outcome variables. Only gender varied significantly. Bivariate Pearson’s correlations of the latent variables showed 1) a significant positive relationship between mindfulness and flourishing and 2) significant negative relationships between stress and both mindfulness and flourishing. Simple regression analyses for the pretest latent variables with GPA showed a significant positive predictive relationship only between pretest flourishing and Spring GPA. The same tests run with the posttest latent variables showed 1) significant positive predictive relationships between GPA and both mindfulness and flourishing and 2) significant negative predictive relationships between stress and GPA. Only posttest flourishing positively predicted retention. For question two, a multilevel model controlling for class sections and gender showed no significant differences in any outcome variable between either group. A post hoc analysis showed that all students had significant decreases in mindfulness and flourishing at the end of the semester and a significant increase in stress.

Self-concept is strongly influenced by beliefs about one’s personal psychological attributes, and these beliefs are held with varying degrees of confidence and consequence. Hence, it is investment in self-views of those attributes that helps to regulate and maintain stable self-concept. Self-view investment is relevant to numerous self-related functions, but high self-view investment can also contribute to maladaptive self-views. Theory suggests that mindfulness cultivates a less personal, more objective perception of one’s thoughts, emotions and behaviors, and training in mindfulness has been shown to alter self-referential processing. The current pilot study (N=21) investigates the possible role of dispositional mindfulness in two forms of self-view investment, epistemic certainty and emotive importance, as indicated by self-reported and neural (functional magnetic resonance imaging-based) indicators of investment. Results indicated that dispositional mindfulness was positively associated with self-reported epistemic certainty but not emotive importance. Trait mindfulness was associated with activity in the amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus during judgements of both epistemic certainty and emotive importance. Caudate activity was positively associated with trait mindfulness specifically for judgements of emotive importance.

Adolescents navigate through escalating academic and social pressures while undergoing major physical and psychological changes. Concerned with behavioral, mental, and emotional challenges of youth, educators seek to expand approaches to promote learning success. Research founded in mindfulness theories has suggested that mindfulness positively and significantly correlates with psychological and physical health, work performance, decision-making ability, and emotional regulation, and may be a factor in learning. Two theoretical viewpoints on mindfulness, Western- and Eastern-based, formed the conceptual framework for this study, which aimed to examine associative relationships between mindfulness and academic achievement, and between mindfulness and affective outcomes for the general population of 14 to 18 year old students. A set of secondary data was composed of 34,375 responses derived from a nationwide survey on attitudes and behaviors of school-age children collected by Search Institute between 2011 and 2013. The data analyses consisted of descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and binary logistic regression analyses. The results showed that adolescent students whose attitudes and behaviors indicated mindfulness had greater likelihood to report earning high grades (p<.001), effect size small-to-medium, and greater likelihood to convey positive affective outcomes (p<.001), effect size medium-to-large. These findings provide a social change benefit to the community of scholars, educators, and youth service professionals by establishing the suitability of a mindfulness construct as a predictor of cognitive and affective learning outcomes in adolescence.

College students are faced with stressors which can negatively impact memory function, thereby, negatively affecting academic performance. This study used a field experiment design to investigate the effects of brief mindfulness on levels of distress and memory functioning between first-year community college students engaging in a brief mindfulness intervention (n = 29) and a control group (n = 28) by using ANCOVA, MANOVA, correlations, and descriptive statistics. Research questions examined whether a brief mindfulness intervention lowered levels of distress in a treatment group. Second, the study examined whether the intervention of brief mindfulness in a treatment group improved memory function. Finally, the findings of this study answered if changes in levels of distress mediated the effects of exposure to mindfulness on memory function. Using the Brief Symptom Inventory, changes pre to postintervention levels of distress were examined. Distress levels decreased in treatment and control groups following 15 minutes of relaxation (MBSR and unstructured). Differences in memory function were examined using the WMS-IV. Positive correlations between the ability to recall visual and verbal materials on a delay in both groups were found. The findings of this study contributed to positive social change by emphasizing the high levels of distress community college students experience. These findings support the importance of implementing brief stress reduction opportunities in a classroom setting, whether structured stress reduction, such as mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR), or unstructured relaxation-time, as a supportive measure to encourage healthy coping skills in handling stress, thereby improving memory and the projection of improving physical and mental well-being, as well as, educational outcomes.

Many people in the United States suffer from substance dependence, which leads to depression, anxiety, work impairment, difficulties in interpersonal relationships, crime, and health care problems. Mindfulness meditation has been applied in many aspects of mental health treatment and all belief systems. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore substance dependents' experiences related to their mindfulness meditation practice of at least 6 months and up to 3 years. A constructivist conceptual framework, which states that human beings create systems for understanding reality based on their individual beliefs, emotions, and interpretations, was used for this study. Research questions focused on 4 themes: (a) substance dependents' experiences of cravings, (b) their experiences of emotional states or feelings, (c) their experiences of their behavioral actions, and (d) their explanations about the effectiveness of mindfulness techniques. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 12 volunteer participants from a public meditation center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and they were analyzed using Moustakas' transcendental phenomenology framework. According to study results, positive social change may occur through increased understanding of varied emotional and behavioral states experienced by substance dependents as they strive for sobriety using mindfulness meditation techniques.

The purpose of this research is to overcome stage fright through different techniques of thorough preparation in the practice room. The main methods discussed are mindfulness and mental training. Five selected orchestral excerpts have been prepared and performed using these methods, then presented as recordings in three different situations and analysed according to the performance quality that is then measured by percentage. From my research I deduct that mental training is an essential part of practising that leads to less stage fright and will increase performance results dramatically. / <p>Eduard Oja Piano Quintet</p><p></p><p>Medverkande: Anna-Lena Ohlwein, Doris Mägi, Viktoria Hillerud, Joline Granath</p>

Long-term mindfulness meditation for anxiety, depression, pain and stress has not been adequately investigated in academic literature. The majority of literature in relation to mindfulness meditation and these ailments concerns Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. This is a short-term 6-8 week program that requires a licensed professional, is limited in availability, high cost, and combines other elements aside from mindfulness meditation, such as yoga, martial arts, group discussion, poetry and other teaching techniques meant to increase mindfulness concentration. Furthermore, efficacy studies, which have assessed the long-term impact of MBSR are inconclusive. Although these studies on long-term practice demonstrate a sustained positive impact from MBSR, they neglect the role that sustained individual practice and group practice played on participants. These participants continued long-term mindfulness meditation practice after the MBSR program had concluded. Moreover, there is a need to explore long-term mindfulness meditation and whether this is more efficacious regarding anxiety, depression, stress and pain than MBSR alone. This dissertation study explored, through 37 semi-structured qualitative interviews, the perceived effect of regular mindfulness meditation on practitioners in West Central Florida who have practiced longer than 6-8 weeks and maintain a consistent individual and group practice. No study of this kind is currently in existence. This exploratory study could provide further insight into dose-responses most beneficial for reducing anxiety, depression, stress and pain, and the potential role of mindfulness meditation alone in this relationship.

Phishing is a social engineering attack to deceive and persuade people to divulge private information like usernames and passwords, account details (including bank account details), and social security numbers. Phishers typically utilize e-mail, chat, text messages, or social media. Despite the presence of automatic anti-phishing filters, phishing messages reach online users' inboxes. Understanding the influence of phishing techniques and individual differences on susceptibility and detection accuracy is an important step toward creating comprehensive behavioral and organizational anti-phishing awareness programs. This dissertation seeks to achieve a dual purpose in a series of three essays. Essay 1 seeks to explore the nature of phishing threats that including identifying attack intentions, and psychological and design techniques of phishing attacks. Essay 2 seeks to understand the relative influence of attack techniques and individual phishing experiential traits on people's phishing susceptibility. Essay 3 seeks to understand an individual's cognitive and affective differences that differentiate between an individual's phishing detection accuracy.