The Effect of Mindfulness on Mood in Virtual Reality
The Effect of Mindfulness on Mood in Virtual Reality Carnegie Mellon University
Gabriel Gagnon
Abstract Mindfulness can help reduce the effects of aggression by preventing one from focusing on their current problems and their past and future worries; it is possible that these effects can be
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achieved through the use of virtual reality. In order to explore this idea, we had participants take part in a mindfulness experience, exposed them to social rejection through an interview simulation, and had them listen to and rate another interviewee, all in virtual reality. Our results show that in fact, brief mindfulness training does not necessarily reduce aggression after social regression, but rather that brief mindfulness training seems to increase feelings of rejection. This implies that perhaps longer periods of mindfulness are necessary to achieve aggression-alleviating results, and that brief mindfulness training may actually be detrimental to the reduction of stress on the whole.
Introduction Mindfulness is the practice of honing one’s attention in on the current moment, and ignoring worries about the past and the future (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Mindfulness can be helpful when it comes to dealing with various situational stressors; for example, mindfulness can help alleviate feelings of aggression after depletion (the act of using up all of one’s capacity to resist
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aggressive behavior) (Yusainy & Lawrence 2014). Mindfulness has been shown to reduce aggression in chronic psychological inpatients, where both physical and verbal aggression were reduced after one year of practice (Singh et. al, 2007). A simple explanation of these effects is that mindfulness grants the ability to experience without personal attachment—seeing those experiences from a non-defensive and non-evaluative stance, thereby reducing aggression (Heppner et al., 2008). Furthermore, social rejection has been shown to induce aggression, and both aggression and hostility have been linked to rumination (Yusainy & Lawrence, 2014). In addition to this, research shows that virtual reality therapy is capable of lessening social stress (Owens & Beidel, 2014). As such, our research question is, does mindfulness meditation reduce aggression after experiencing social rejection? What we aim to discover through this research pertains to the efficacy of mindfulness as a guard against social aggression; we aim to discover whether mindfulness training prior to being socially rejected will reduce the amount of aggression and hostility shown afterwards. Within this study, we manipulated mindfulness training and social rejection. Participants either received mindfulness training or a relaxing scene, and either experienced social rejection or had a neutral experience. Our hypotheses were that participants would exhibit more aggression after being socially rejected, and that the effect of rejection on aggression will be reduced for those who experienced mindfulness training before social rejection.
Methods Participants and Design Our participants consisted of 51 CMU undergraduates (37 females, 23 males, and 3 nonconforming). The demographic breakup was 25 Asian; 4 African American; 25 White; 6 multiracial; 4 other. The study design was 2 x 2 between subjects factorial. The study consisted of three parts: two independent variable manipulations, and one dependent variable measure. The two independent variable manipulations were for mindfulness training and social rejection, while
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the dependent variable measured aggression. In order to manipulate mindfulness training and social rejection as well as measure aggression within virtual reality, we developed an android project in Unity 5.3.5 intended for use with Google Cardboard and a Sony PS4 (PlayStation 4) controller. The project consisted of three scenes, representative of each independent variable manipulation and the dependent variable measure. Participants were randomized to each condition within the project, blinding experiments to condition.
Procedure Participants were told that the study was concerned with virtual reality mediated job interviews, and were informed that for part of the experiment, they would be taking part in a job interview simulation with their peers. In reality, the peers they were to interact with were fake characters which we created. Before beginning, the participants were first asked to complete a consent form, and then were asked to complete a questionnaire through Qualtrics; the participants were informed that none of the data we collected would be identified with their names. The survey they completed consisted of demographics as well as background questions about their mood and general demeanor, adapted from the PANAS (positive and negative assessment schedule), RSE (Rosenburg self-esteem), and BAQ (Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire). Further surveys also used these measures. After completing this survey, the participants moved on to the mindfulness training manipulation. The mindfulness training manipulation was the first scene within the Google Cardboard android project. The scene consisted of a forest environment, including evergreen trees, a lake, ambient lighting, fog, and natural sounds. Within the mindfulness training condition, the participants experienced the basic scene, with an added 5-minute mindfulness training audio clip played over the natural sounds. Within the no mindfulness training condition, the participants only experienced the basic scene for 5-minutes.
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After finishing the mindfulness training manipulation, the participant moved on to the first interview task: our social rejection manipulation. Participants were told they would be speaking to a panel of three peer judges, who were in separate locations. The judges were given gender-neutral names. Participants were given a set of three pre-written stories, and were told to pick one, read it over, and then re-tell that story as if it were their own. After delivering this story, they would receive both verbal feedback as well as a numerical score from 1 – 10, with a 10 being the best score. They were given two minutes to look over the story and take notes. Once their two minutes were up, they were instructed on how to use the PS4 controller to speak to the judges; this consisted of holding down the X button on the controller while the participant delivered their story, and letting go of the button when they were finished, as if they were using a walkie-talkie. After releasing the X button, the judges pre-recorded responses were played. Within the rejection condition, the participant heard the judges say, “I had trouble hearing you,” “I think that story needs to be improved before a real job interview,” and “I don’t understand how your story was relevant to you getting this job.” The scores given in the rejection condition were 2, 4, and 3. For the neutral condition, the pre-recorded responses were “Good job,” “Interesting,” and “Nice to meet you.” The scores given were all 7’s. After the job interview experience, participants were asked to complete another Qualtrics survey. After completing this survey, they moved on to the aggression measurement scene. Participants were informed that they would now be taking the position of the judge, and giving feedback to a peer. For this condition, the participants were told that they could cut off the person speaking at any time during their story, if the participant had heard enough. They did this by pressing the X button. This fake peer also had a gender-neutral name separate from the judge’s names, in order to avoid confounds. The participant was told that after stopping the participant, they would give them a numerical score, again from 1 – 10 with 10 being the best. They did this using the L2 and R2 buttons on the controller, with L2 decreasing the score and R2 increasing, and then pressing the Triangle button to submit the score. We used the length of time the participant
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listened to the this peer and the score the participant gave them to determine the participant’s aggression. The participants then filled out the last section of the Qualtrics survey. After completing the survey, the participants were given a complete debrief, thanked, and given their choice of candy.
Results The first measurement of interest is our manipulation check. A T-Test revealed that participants in the rejection condition (M = 2.81, SD = 1.29) did in fact feel significantly more rejected than those in the neutral condition (M = 1.50, SD = 0.938), t (49) = 4.20, p < .0005). These results were interestingly moderated by mindfulness training condition, where mindfulness condition increased feelings of rejection. Within our main analysis of listening time, we discovered no main effects of mindfulness training condition (F(1,47) = 0.134, p = .716 η 2= .003) or rejection condition (F(1,47)= 1.285, p = .263, η 2 = .027), although we did find a significant interaction (F(1,47) = 4.533, p = .039 η 2 = . 088) such that for participants who received mindfulness training, those who were then rejected listened to their peer for a longer period of time than those in the neutral condition. The analysis performed was a one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance), and can be seen in Chart 1. This data is expressed as a ratio of time listened : total time possible. For our analyses of the score participants gave their peer, a one-way ANOVA found a main effect of rejection condition such that participants who experienced social rejection gave their peer a lower score (M = 4.514, SD = 0.461) than those who were not rejected (M = 5.902, SD = 0.400)
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(F(1,47)= 5.174, p = .028, Ρ2 = .101). For score, there was no main effect of mindfulness training condition (F(1,47) = 0.296, p = .589, Ρ 2 = .006), and there was no interaction found between rejection condition and mindfulness training condition on the score given to their peer. This data is shown in Chart 2.
Discussion Our hypotheses were unsupported, and were in fact the opposite of what we discovered. Our 5-minute mindfulness training seems to have in face decreased the amount of time spent listening to our fake peer, as opposed to our hypothesis, which stated that listening time would increase in the mindfulness condition. It is possible that those participants in the rejection condition listened to our fake peer longer in attempt to restore social connection; when people feel excluded socially, they may be driven to increase their levels of social connection (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Another theory is that our short mindfulness training was not sufficient to allow our participants to properly use mindfulness techniques after being socially rejected. Research has shown that brief periods of mindfulness may increase stress instead of decreasing it; stress peaks at around 25 minutes (Cresswell et al., 2014). Given that our mindfulness training only lasted for 5 minutes, it is likely that when we removed the participants from the scene, their stress levels were still on the rise. As one limitation of our study was the mindfulness training period, future experiments on this subject should definitely consider extended mindfulness practice before inducing social rejection. We hypothesize that with a longer mindfulness training period, the results observed may be closer to our initial prediction. Furthermore, another clear limit of our study is that we did not get mood data immediately after the mindfulness training condition. It would be of interest to
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conduct the PANAS survey after the mindfulness training, so as to determine whether the mindfulness training really did calm down the participant. It is possible that the mindfulness training actually made the participant more nervous than the neutral condition, by forcing them to take part in an activity rather than simply relax on their own terms.
References Feshbach S. Mussen PH (ed.). 1970. Aggression. Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology, 2: 159-259. Heppner, W. L., Kernis, M. H., Lakey, C. E., Davis, P. J., Cascio, E. V., Campbell, W. K., & Goldman, B. M. (n.d.). Heightened mindfulness as a means of reducing aggressive behavior: Dispositional and situational evidence. PsycEXTRA Dataset. Kabat-Zinn J. 2003. Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future. Clin Psychol: Sci Pract 10: 144–156. Kernis MH. 2003. Toward a conceptualization of optimal self-esteem. Psychol Inquiry, 14:1–26. Kernis MH. 2005. Measuring self-esteem in context: the importance of stability of self-esteem in psychological functioning. Journal of Personality, 73: 1–37. Kernis MH, Lakey CE, Heppner WL. 2008. Secure versus fragile high self-esteem as a predictor of verbal defensiveness: converging findings across three different markers. Journal of Personality, 76: 1–36. Owens, M. E., & Beidel, D. C. 2014. Can virtual reality effectively elicit distress associated with social anxiety disorder? Psychopathology Behavior Assessment, 37: 296-305.
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Singh, N. N., Lancioni, G. E., Winton, A. S., Adkins, A. D., Wahler, R. G., Sabaawi, M., & Singh, J. 2003. Individuals with mental illness can control their aggressive behavior through mindfulness training. Behavior Modification, 31(3): 313-328. Cresswell, J. D., Pacilio, L. E., Lindsay, E. K., & Brown, K. W. (2014). Brief mindfulness meditation training alters psychological and neuroendocrine responses to social evaluative stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology.
The Effect of Mindfulness on Mood in Virtual Reality
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