Clinical trial NCT02313779: Meditation and Decision Making Study III
Official title: Nonconscious Affective and Physiological Mediators of Behavioral Decision Making Study 3
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Meditation
Lead sponsor: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
First posted: 2014-12-10
Enrollment: 240
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 35
Maximum age (years): 64
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: FACTORIAL
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The overarching goal of the proposed research is to investigate the role of emotions in facilitating successful lifestyle change, defined as healthy behavioral decisions repeated daily, or near daily.

Participants are asked to make two lab visits during the course of four weeks to complete electronic questionnaires, be monitored for psychophysiological activity (e.g. heart rate, blood pressure, respiration), and listen to a guided meditation audio track. Additionally, between the two visits participants will be asked to complete weekly surveys that ask about daily meditation practice (outside of the lab) and general emotions.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Fluent in written and spoken English, with a high school reading level
* Willingness or interest in learning to meditate
* Computer literate with internet access

Exclusion Criteria:

* Individuals who are able to read Chinese logographs
* Individuals who have or have had a regular meditation practice, defined as having attended a 6-week or longer meditation class, practicing meditation at least 3 days a week for up to 6-weeks.
* Individuals with allergies to adhesive materials

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in positive emotions (as measured by the Modified Daily Emotions Scale)
timeFrame: Baseline and Weeks 1, 2, and 3
measure: Change in nonconscious incentive salience (as measured by the Affect Misattribution Procedure)
timeFrame: Baseline and Weeks 1, 2, and 3
measure: Changes in meditation time
timeFrame: Weeks 1, 2, and 3
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Cardiac Vagal Tone
timeFrame: Baseline
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chapel Hill
country: United States
facility: UNC PEP Lab
state: North Carolina
Study officials:
affiliation: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
name: Barbara L Fredrickson, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Fredrickson BL, Cohn MA, Coffey KA, Pek J, Finkel SM. Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008 Nov;95(5):1045-1062. doi: 10.1037/a0013262.
citation: Carmody J, Baer RA, L B Lykins E, Olendzki N. An empirical study of the mechanisms of mindfulness in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program. J Clin Psychol. 2009 Jun;65(6):613-26. doi: 10.1002/jclp.20579.
citation: Johnson KJ, Waugh CE, Fredrickson BL. Smile to see the forest: Facially expressed positive emotions broaden cognition. Cogn Emot. 2010 Feb 19;24(2):299-321. doi: 10.1080/02699930903384667.
citation: Payne BK, Cheng CM, Govorun O, Stewart BD. An inkblot for attitudes: affect misattribution as implicit measurement. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2005 Sep;89(3):277-93. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.277.