Mindfulness and relationships

Kirk Warren Brown, an assistant professor of social psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, co-developed a 15-point mindful attention awareness scale (see box) and has used it to test the levels of mindfulness of college students in romantic relationships. He has conducted two studies that suggest increased mindfulness correlates with overall relationship happiness.

In the first, he found that men and women are equally likely to be mindful, and if one person in the relationship is mindful, both members of the couple can benefit.

In the second study, Brown asked longtime couples to discuss a contentious issue in the relationship while being observed in his lab. Those who scored higher on the mindfulness scale were less anxious and less hostile after having such simulated conflicts with their significant others, he found.

“Mindfulness tends to inoculate people against feeling negative thoughts in the first place. You go into the conflict with less anxiety and hostility, and mindfulness seems to prevent those symptoms from arising,” Brown says.

Carson finds that couples who practice mindfulness together can benefit not only from the individual attentiveness skills but also from the fact that they are sharing a new experience. “The practice of mindfulness together is a way that couples feel that they are deepening their relationship.”

Even if only one partner is trying, the couple still benefits, he says. “If one partner is accepting and open, it’s very hard for the other partner to push against that.”

To an observer it might look as if the more mindful spouse is likely to lose an argument, but Walser says: “We don’t advocate that people become carpets to be walked all over. There’s a difference between accepting what you feel and think and allowing someone else to always have their way.” Walser notes that this increased awareness can help individuals see when their relationship is in serious distress.

Extracted from a longer article in the Washington Post.

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