Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp

Wherever you go, there you become: How mindfulness arises in everyday
situations
Christopher S. Reinaa, Ravi S. Kudesiab,
⁎

a
Virginia Commonwealth University, United States
b
Temple University, United States

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: In this article, we suggest that mindfulness is not something entirely inherent within people but is partly elicited
Mindfulness and shaped by situations. Integrating research on metacognitive practice and self-regulation, we introduce a
Attention theoretical framework that explains how mindfulness arises based on capacity for self-regulation as well as three
Metacognition motivational forces: metacognitive beliefs that drive resources into self-regulation, mental fatigue that draws
Self-regulation
resources away from self-regulation, and situational appraisals that influence how much self-regulation is
Experience sampling
Cognitive resources
needed to maintain mindfulness. Across three experience sampling studies that include 558 participants and
Individual differences 9,390 responses, we find that: mindfulness depends less on people’s overall capacity for self-regulation than it
Mental fatigue does on the metacognitive beliefs that motivate them to allocate their resources, these metacognitive beliefs can
Motivation compensate for the negative role of mental fatigue, and situations can influence mindfulness both by pulling
attention toward tasks (e.g., with challenging tasks) and away from them (e.g., with organizational hindrances).
In sum, this article clarifies the understudied antecedents of mindfulness through a theoretical framework and
empirical findings.

1. Introduction
In his early and influential treatment of mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn
(1994) famously remarked that “wherever you go, there you are.” It is
the quality of mind we bring into situations which determines our fate,
he suggests, rather than the situations themselves. And mindfulness
entails a particular quality of mind: a quality in which people are at-
tentive to ongoing events and flexible in how they interpret them, and
that may therefore help people make the most of the situations in which
they find themselves (Bishop et al., 2004; Garland, Gaylord, &
Fredrickson, 2011). As a result, it becomes incumbent on all of us to be
more mindful: to invoke this particular quality of mind “on purpose” as
we enter into situations (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4). The underlying pre-
mise is that mindfulness is something that people carry within them-
selves, which they then bring into their everyday situations. As mind-
fulness research has become increasingly prevalent within
organizational behavior, this premise has grown with it, largely un-
challenged. The vast majority of research, as a result, concerns the
consequences of mindfulness—i.e., what happens if people bring
greater mindfulness into their situations?—typically finding that
mindfulness has positive outcomes (e.g., Good et al., 2016; Reb &
Atkins, 2015). What has not been adequately addressed so far, either
empirically or especially at the theoretical level, are the antecedents of
mindfulness: what makes people more or less mindful from one situa-
tion to the next? If mindfulness indeed produces positive outcomes, it
seems important to identify what, in turn, produces mindfulness. And to
the extent that mindfulness levels fluctuate from situation to situation,
it becomes likely that features of situations can help to elicit or erode
mindfulness.
The purpose of the present research is to develop these much-
needed theoretical underpinnings of the antecedents of mindfulness and
to bring empirical results to bear on them. We develop these under-
pinnings through a theoretical model that extends recent insights about
mindfulness as metacognitive practice (Kudesia, 2019) in light of re-
search on self-regulation in the workplace (Beal, Weiss, Barros, &
MacDermid, 2005; Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989; Lian, Yam, Ferris, &
Brown, 2017). This theoretical model emphasizes the ways in which
mindfulness is elicited both by the situations in which people find
themselves and by characteristic features of people that remain more
stable across situations. In particular, it has long been recognized that
mindfulness relies on a capacity for self-regulation, particularly those
processes that regulate attention, thoughts, and feelings (e.g., Hölzel

⁎
Department of Human Resource Management, Fox School of Business, Temple University, 1801 Liacouras Walk, 344 Alter Hall 006-13, Philadelphia, PA 19122,
United States.
E-mail address: rskudesia@temple.edu (R.S. Kudesia).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.11.008
Received 31 December 2017; Received in revised form 12 November 2019; Accepted 25 November 2019
0749-5978/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Christopher S. Reina and Ravi S. Kudesia, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.11.008
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
et al., 2011; Vago & Silbersweig, 2012). The theoretical model in-
troduced here explains how mindfulness arises as a function of both a
person’s capacity for self-regulation and their motivation to enact self-
regulation, where the motivational aspects of mindfulness have re-
ceived little attention to date. The theoretical model more specifically
explains how mindfulness levels depend on the interplay of three mo-
tivational forces: metacognitive beliefs that drive resources into self-
regulation, feelings of mental fatigue that draw resources away from
self-regulation, and features of situations that influence how much self-
regulation is needed to maintain mindfulness.
By better elaborating the set of processes that underlie the expres-
sion of mindfulness, from the more stable aspects of capacity for self-
regulation to the more dynamic appraisals of situations that shape how
this capacity is allocated on a momentary basis, this model provides a
foundation to study the antecedents of mindfulness. Indeed, this theo-
retical model motivates three experience sampling studies—one ex-
ploratory study followed by two confirmatory studies that replicate and
extend the first—which jointly offer new insight into how mindfulness
arises in situations. This research therefore not only helps scholars to
conceptualize the antecedents of mindfulness and understand how
these antecedents should be empirically studied, but it also has bearing
on how mindfulness should be trained and how practitioners can design
work to enhance mindfulness in organizations. Taken in sum, in line
with the view that cognition in organizations is forever in a dynamic
process of “becoming” as people enter situations (Tsoukas & Chia,
2002), we suggest the value in a different perspective on mindfulness
that better integrates the person and situation: “wherever you go, there
you become.”
1.1. Mindfulness and self-regulation
As mindfulness has become prevalent within organizational practice
and scholarly research on organizations, there is a growing need to
situate mindfulness more fully within organizational contexts (Good
et al., 2016; Reb & Atkins, 2015; Sutcliffe, Vogus, & Dane, 2016). Re-
cently, metacognitive practice has been introduced as a theory designed
for this purpose (see Kudesia, 2019). Metacognitive practice follows a
growing consensus in psychological and organizational scholarship that
mindfulness is a state that can be characterized by two key components,
which rely on self-regulation processes to manifest (Bishop et al., 2004;
Garland et al., 2011; Glomb, Duffy, Bono, & Yang, 2011; Hafenbrack,
2017). First, mindfulness entails that people monitor their attention and
regulate it toward ongoing events, rather than letting thoughts drift off
into the past or future. This first state of attention directed toward
ongoing events is known as mindful attention. Second, mindfulness en-
tails that people monitor their thoughts and feelings about these on-
going events from a more detached perspective, in which they “step
back” mentally, rather than getting involved in their thoughts and
feelings. This second state of detached monitoring of thoughts and
feelings is called mindful metacognition. Entering states of mindfulness
can entail substantive benefits for people. But what factors make people
more likely to enter these states?
Whereas scholars often theorize the factors that make people more
likely to enter states of mindfulness as being entirely “inherent” within
people, including their “capability, discipline, or inclination,” empirical
work nonetheless reveals that some 71% of people’s mindfulness levels
fluctuate from one situation to the next, with 29% remaining consistent
across situations (Brown & Ryan, 2003, p. 838). Because people’s levels
of mindfulness fluctuate so much from situation to situation, it seems
likely that factors related to situations could influence mindfulness. As
an analogy, consider flow. Flow, like mindfulness, is a peak psycholo-
gical state (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). The key antecedent
of flow is the balance between the skills within a person and the
challenges posed by the situation (Keller & Landhäußer, 2012). To fully
understand how flow arises, one must jointly consider the person and
the situation. Neither one alone is sufficient. Metacognitive practice
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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
emphasizes a similar possibility by describing mindfulness as emerging
from a “coming together” of people and situations, such that mindful
states cannot be explained solely by factors inherent within people that
remain consistent across situations (Kudesia, 2019, p. 415). Metacog-
nitive practice instead suggests that a fuller set of factors underlie the
expression of mindfulness. These factors include not only people’s ca-
pacity for self-regulation, but also their motivation to enact self-reg-
ulation, which depends in part on how people appraise their current
situation.
Ultimately, mindfulness relies on the self-regulatory processes by
which people monitor and adjust their attention, thoughts, and feelings.
When the mind drifts off or gets immersed in a stream of thoughts and
feelings, people must notice their state of mind and adjust it, by
bringing their attention back to ongoing events or detaching from that
stream of thoughts and feelings (e.g., Hasenkamp, Wilson-Mendenhall,
Duncan, & Barsalou, 2012; Hölzel et al., 2011; Malinowski, 2013; Vago
& Silbersweig, 2012). Unless people can enact these self-regulatory
processes of monitoring and adjusting, they will be unable to maintain
states of mindfulness. What has remained underspecified in mindfulness
research is how people’s capacity and motivation to engage in these
self-regulation processes are themselves determined. However, because
these processes of monitoring and adjusting are so fundamental to self-
regulation, they are not exclusive to mindfulness. In fact, these pro-
cesses have been discussed extensively in broader workplace self-reg-
ulation research (Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989; Lian et al., 2017), in-
cluding in terms of their implications for the regulation of attention,
thoughts, and feelings (Beal et al., 2005; Randall, Oswald, & Beier,
2014). And importantly, unlike in the mindfulness literature, the self-
regulation research emphasizes how the processes that give rise to
mindfulness are not costless to enact, either in terms of capacity or
motivation limitations. Considering the costs of enacting these pro-
cesses as identified in self-regulation research can therefore help ex-
plain how mindfulness arises in situations in a manner that has not yet
been widely integrated into mindfulness research. Integrating this self-
regulation research with metacognitive practice can therefore help
provide a foundation to understand how mindfulness arises in situa-
tions.
1.2. Capacity and motivation in self-regulation
Self-regulation brushes up against limits in both people’s capacity
and motivation (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015; Lian et al., 2017). A person’s
capacity for self-regulation depends on “the nonmotivational cognitive
resources serving as an upper boundary on the effort that can be ex-
pended” (Lian et al., 2017, p. 706). This property of limited cognitive
resources producing upper bounds in self-regulation capacity has a rich
history (e.g., Kahneman, 1973; Navon & Gopher, 1979; Norman &
Bobrow, 1975; Wickens, 1984) and remains relevant for workplace self-
regulation (Beal et al., 2005; Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989; Randall et al.,
2014). Cognitive resources refer to the structurally limited amount of
neural information processing power that a person can allocate across
various mental tasks at any one time (Cohen, 2014, pp. 751–758).
Capacity for self-regulation thus partly reflects stable individual dif-
ferences in which people “differ in their overall capacity owing to
neuroanatomical differences”—such as those relating to working
memory, executive functions, or general mental ability (Hofmann,
Schmeichel, & Baddeley, 2012; Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015)—and capa-
city also partly fluctuates based on temporary factors, such as “stress,
alcohol, and sleep deprivation” (Lian et al., 2017, p. 707). Limitations
in cognitive resources become important because self-regulatory pro-
cesses are the most resource-consuming of the mental tasks that people
enact (Kurzban, Duckworth, Kable, & Myers, 2013). Because states of
mindfulness rely on these resource-consuming self-regulation processes,
the emergence of mindfulness may depend on a person’s capacity for
self-regulation, that is, on their overall level of cognitive resources
(Isbel & Mahar, 2015; Ruocco & Direkoglu, 2013).
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
Capacity alone, however, only sets an upper boundary on self-reg-
ulation. It is not sufficient to merely have high overall cognitive re-
source levels. People must be motivated to allocate these cognitive re-
sources in any specific situation. In particular, people must allocate
their cognitive resources on a situation-to-situation basis across three
areas: on-task, off-task, and self-regulation (Beal et al., 2005; Kanfer &
Ackerman, 1989; Randall et al., 2014). Whether people drive resources
into self-regulation at all thus depends on motivational factors (Lian
et al., 2017). Motivational factors involved in self-regulation are
manifold, and can include: (1) broader intentions to be effective in self-
regulation, (2) current feelings that inform the willingness to self-reg-
ulate, and (3) appraisals of the amount of resources required to effec-
tively self-regulate in the current situation (Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989;
Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). These motivational factors can help connect
the more stable and internal aspects of self-regulation capacity to the
more dynamic factors by which specific situations influence a person’s
mindfulness levels.
1.3. A theoretical model of how mindfulness arises in situations
In what follows, we build a theoretical model of how mindfulness
arises in situations, which integrates insights from metacognitive
practice and self-regulation research. The theoretical model traces the
emergence of mindfulness in situations not only to people’s capacity for
self-regulation, but also to three motivational forces: the metacognitive
beliefs that drive their resources into self-regulation, the feelings of
mental fatigue that draw their resources away from self-regulation, and
the appraisals of situations that influence how much self-regulation
people feel is needed to maintain mindfulness. This theoretical model
thereby helps us conceptualize mindfulness as something that arises
based on the coming together of people and their situations.
1.3.1. Cognitive resource level and metacognitive beliefs that motivate
resource allocation
Turning to the first motivational factor, mindfulness may rely on
particular intentions to be effective in self-regulation. Metacognitive
practice accordingly argues that although “people’s neural capacity to
monitor and adjust” certainly matters, mindfulness may be more deeply
implicated in motivational processes “that shape how people monitor or
adjust” (Kudesia, 2019, p. 413). Mindfulness requires more than the
general capacity for self-regulation: it requires specific metacognitive
beliefs that map onto this capacity and help guide how this capacity is
utilized. Metacognitive beliefs are beliefs about how the mind works.
Such beliefs can alter people’s motivation to allocate their cognitive
resources into self-regulation and shape what they envision effective
self-regulation to look like (Jankowski & Holas, 2014; Teasdale, 1999).
These beliefs thereby help establish mindfulness as a distinct way of
enacting self-regulation that puts these processes of monitoring and
adjusting to use in a different manner than the typical.
Metacognitive practice identifies three such metacognitive beliefs
that are uniquely emphasized in mindfulness meditation training and
that supersede typical beliefs about how the mind works and how self-
regulation should be enacted in order to be effective. In contrast to
typical beliefs, in mindfulness, the monitoring process does not merely
serve to trigger the adjusting process (e.g., Botvinick, Braver, Barch,
Carter, & Cohen, 2001). Rather, monitoring is important in its own right
because when people change how they monitor their state of mind,
their state of mind can itself change. These three beliefs are thought to
enhance the expression of mindfulness in everyday situations, particu-
larly by changing how people monitor, and thus adjust, their attention,
thoughts, and feelings (Kudesia, 2019). The three metacognitive beliefs
are attentional sufficiency (the belief that attention is not depleted with
use over time), virtue of monitoring (the belief that it is valuable to notice
one’s internal thoughts and feelings, even unpleasant ones, rather than
avoiding them), and map-terrain differentiation (the belief that one’s
thoughts and feelings about a situation need not necessarily reflect any
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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
objective reality). These three beliefs likely reinforce each other, and
work synergistically. For instance, insofar as holding a virtue of mon-
itoring belief helps people notice their current state of mind, it helps
people put the other two beliefs into practice (Veenman, Van Hout-
Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006) and both virtue of monitoring and map-
terrain differentiation beliefs limit the tendency to see attention as
depletable (Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2013; Saunders, Rodrigo, & Inzlicht,
2016). Putting these insights about capacity and motivation together,
we propose the following:
Proposition 1. Overall cognitive resource level and metacognitive
beliefs are both associated with greater state mindfulness.
1.3.2. Metacognitive beliefs as compensatory for mental fatigue in resource
allocation
Metacognitive beliefs, however, are not the only motivational factor
that could influence the emergence of mindfulness. A second motiva-
tional factor is the feeling of mental fatigue, which should reduce the
willingness to self-regulate, and thereby reduce mindfulness. Self-reg-
ulatory processes, such as those that regulate attention, are known to
generate feelings of mental fatigue (Mulert, Menzinger, Leicht,
Pogarell, & Hegerl, 2005; Sarter, Gehring, & Kozak, 2006). The feeling
of mental fatigue evolved to play a motivational role in cognitive re-
source allocation (Hockey, 2011; Inzlicht, Schmeichel, & Macrae, 2014;
Kurzban et al., 2013). Namely, although mental fatigue can stem from
many factors, and debate exists about the precise mechanisms through
which it exerts its effects, scholars agree that mental fatigue serves a
motivational role of making people feel as if they cannot continue to
self-regulate, even if they can (see Kotabe & Hofmann, 2016). This
feeling can be adaptive, as it prompts people to pause their work after
periods of sustained effort and consume any presently available rewards
in their environment (Evans, Boggero, & Segerstrom, 2016; Hockey,
2011; Inzlicht et al., 2014). Without this feeling of mental fatigue, it is
possible that available rewards could therefore go unconsumed in the
short-term as people continue self-regulating in favor of their long-term
goals. For this reason, the feeling of mental fatigue is a central moti-
vational factor in the allocation of cognitive resources.
The feeling of mental fatigue, however, poses a paradox when
considered in relation to mindfulness (cf. Sonnentag, 2018). On one
hand, mental fatigue should predict reduced state mindfulness, because
mental fatigue makes people feel as if they cannot continue self-reg-
ulation (Hülsheger, Walkowiak, & Thommes, 2018). Mental fatigue
would therefore help allocate cognitive resources away from the self-
regulatory processes that enable mindfulness. On the other hand,
mindfulness is often advocated as an effective means of reducing feel-
ings of mental fatigue (Guidetti, Viotti, Badagliacca, Colombo, &
Converso, 2019; Taylor & Millear, 2016). The paradox is thus that
mindfulness should become unhelpful in precisely the situations when
it is most needed. If a person feels mental fatigue, her mindfulness le-
vels will subsequently drop—leaving her unable to then utilize mind-
fulness as a means to reduce fatigue. Thus, the current understanding of
the relation between mental fatigue and mindfulness implies a vicious
cycle, in which one must already not feel fatigued in order to utilize the
mindfulness that then helps them reduce their fatigue. This paradox, if
true, suggests that some other additional process may be needed to
restore mindfulness (e.g., psychological detachment; Haun, Nübold, &
Bauer, 2018).
Metacognitive practice can help reconcile this paradox. A key
function of metacognitive beliefs is to give people the agency to over-
ride default responses to situations (Kudesia, 2019). Because mental
fatigue is motivational, in that it does not necessarily indicate that the
capacity for self-regulation is limited, people can choose to heed or
override its default motivational effects in any specific situation
(Kotabe & Hofmann, 2016). Although all people will feel mental fa-
tigue, and mental fatigue may thus influence their resource allocation,
metacognitive beliefs can help compensate for this influence by offering
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
a competing motivation. Believing that attention is sufficient rather
than scarce (attentional sufficiency), that there is value in noticing the
feeling of mental fatigue rather than having it, and its default motiva-
tional influence, go unnoticed (virtue of monitoring), and that one need
not treat the feeling that self-regulation is limited as necessarily true
(map-terrain differentiation) can help people exert greater agency over
their resource allocation. Even if they feel mental fatigue, they can
nonetheless allocate resources in a way that enhances mindfulness. This
theorizing helps augment the current understanding of the relation
between mindfulness and mental fatigue: there is no need for either a
vicious cycle or for any additional processes to restore mindfulness.
Rather, metacognitive beliefs can sustain the allocation of cognitive
resources to self-regulation processes, even despite the con-
temporaneous demotivating presence of mental fatigue.
Proposition 2. Feelings of mental fatigue will reduce subsequent states
of mindfulness, whereas metacognitive beliefs (held
contemporaneously with feelings of mental fatigue) will enhance
subsequent states of mindfulness, above and beyond the effect of
mental fatigue.
1.3.3. Situation appraisals as supplementing or encumbering resource
allocation
Given that mindfulness requires allocation of limited cognitive re-
sources to self-regulation processes, situations can play an important
role in eliciting mindfulness, or in impairing it. In particular, people
recognize various types of situations (such as work or recreation) and
appraise these situations based on their salient characteristics (Edwards
& Templeton, 2005; Rauthmann, Sherman, & Funder, 2015; Wagerman
& Funder, 2009). Metacognitive practice emphasizes that people ac-
tively adjust their mindfulness levels based on how they appraise the
characteristics of their current work situations (Kudesia, 2019). Re-
search on self-regulation provides further insight into the specific ap-
praisals people make in their work situations, and how these appraisals
motivate resource allocation, and thus can influence the emergence of
mindfulness.
Namely, when people work, they appraise characteristics of situa-
tions in terms of their “task attentional pull,” which draws cognitive
resources toward the task, and their “off-task attentional demands,”
which draw cognitive resources away from the task (Beal et al., 2005;
Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989; Randall et al., 2014). These appraisals re-
flect the intuitive experience that some situations make it harder or
easier to attend to tasks than do others. Examples of attentional pull
include skill-challenge balance noted in flow research among various
other factors including “the importance of the task, the intrinsic interest
of the task, the presence and difficulty of task goals, the existence of
deadlines, and so forth” (Beal et al., 2005, p. 1059). Attentional de-
mands include factors such as distractions unrelated to the task or
hindrances that make tasks harder to accomplish, and which may
trigger negative affective reactions (Beal et al., 2005, p. 1058). In other
words, these characteristics of situations shape the relative ease with
which one can continuously allocate their cognitive resources toward
the task-at-hand.
As the self-regulation processes underlying mindfulness ensure that
cognitive resources stay allocated to the task-at-hand, rather than
drifting off or getting lost in thoughts and feelings, attentional pull and
attentional demands can thus function as supplements or encumbrances
to the self-regulation process. If a situation helps pull cognitive re-
sources toward the task-at-hand, it essentially performs the same
function as the self-regulation processes underlying mindfulness. One
needs to allocate fewer resources to self-regulation because the situa-
tion itself is conducive to states of mindfulness. The opposite is true as
well. Take the example of attempting to perform a task in the presence
of a smartphone. Because the smartphone makes a host of other pos-
sible tasks salient, it is incredibly distracting, and pulls cognitive re-
sources away from the task at hand (Kurzban et al., 2013; Ward, Duke,
4
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Gneezy, & Bos, 2017). The smartphone’s presence thereby increases the
amount of self-regulation needed to maintain the same mindfulness
level as would be possible in its absence. Situations with high atten-
tional demands thus function as encumbrances, as even greater self-
regulation is needed to facilitate mindfulness in the presence of these
demands. Appraisals of work situations in terms of their attentional pull
and attentional demands show how mindfulness can be elicited in
concert with situations. To the extent that situations pull attention to-
ward tasks, they serve to supplement the self-regulation processes that
produce mindfulness, and to the extent that situations have attentional
demands that draw attention away from tasks, they pose additional
encumbrances on self-regulation that make mindfulness less likely to
arise.
Proposition 3. Situations with on-task attentional pull will enhance
state mindfulness, whereas situations with off-task attentional demands
will reduce state mindfulness.
Situations may not only influence mindfulness, but their influence
may be contingent on a person’s capacity and motivation for self-reg-
ulation, such as their cognitive resource level and the metacognitive
beliefs that drive resource allocation. Indeed, the degree to which
people enact self-regulation is a “joint function of the various sources
that factor into control motivation and of trait differences … and state
influences … that factor into control capacity” (Kotabe & Hofmann,
2015, p. 627). For instance, when situations have more attentional pull,
having a higher overall resource level may become more useful for
maintaining mindfulness, because cognitive resources can continue to
be pulled toward the task only up to a person’s upper limit (van der
Meer et al., 2010). In situations that pull attention, mindfulness thus
becomes more likely to the degree that people have cognitive resources
available for use, offering an advantage to those who have more overall
resources. In contrast, when situations lack attentional pull, metacog-
nitive beliefs may better support mindfulness, as such situations require
an internal source of motivation to continue resource allocation
(Kudesia, 2019). People are not limited by their overall capacity in such
situations, but by their motivation to allocate resources in the absence
of appraisals that motivate resource allocation. On the other hand,
when situations pose high attentional demands, capacity and motiva-
tion should both be helpful. Both having available cognitive resources
and being motivated to allocate those resources into self-regulation
should enhance mindfulness, because regardless of the reason the re-
sources are being allocated, having these resources allocated to self-
regulation will help people overcome the additional encumbrance
posed by high attentional demands. Capacity and motivation alike en-
able the greater self-regulation needed to facilitate mindfulness in the
presence of such attentional demands.
Proposition 4. (a) Cognitive resources will especially enhance
mindfulness in situations where attentional pull is high, whereas
metacognitive beliefs will especially enhance mindfulness when
attentional pull is low. (b) Cognitive resources and metacognitive
beliefs will both enhance mindfulness in situations where attentional
demands are high.
2. Overview of studies
The theoretical model of mindfulness proposed above, and illu-
strated in Fig. 1, provides underpinnings to study the antecedents of
mindfulness at the level of specific situations. In what follows, we draw
on this theoretical model to motivate three empirical studies. We begin
with an exploratory initial study to assess the potential of this research
question. We then replicate and extend findings from this exploratory
study across the latter two studies. We finally summarize the pattern of
results across all three studies in light of our propositions in the dis-
cussion section.
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
Fig. 1. Theoretical model of how mindfulness emerges in situations.
2.1. Selection of situational antecedents
We identified situational antecedents based on a logic of mutual
constraint satisfaction, as the antecedents were selected to simulta-
neously: (1) indicate on-task attentional pull or off-task attentional
demand characteristics, (2) be relevant for work situations, (3) and help
address critical open questions in mindfulness research. We selected
three situational features that exert on-task attentional pull (skill-
challenge balance, conscientiousness goals, positive social interactions)
and two that exert off-task attentional demands (hindrance stressors,
technology use).
2.1.1. On-task attentional pull
For on-task attentional pull, both skill-challenge balance and con-
scientiousness goals were selected to help establish the divergent va-
lidity of mindfulness from similar constructs. As noted, skill-challenge
balance is the key antecedent of flow, so understanding whether it also
predicts mindfulness helps clarify the extent to these two constructs
differ. It also has the benefit of being a quintessential example of at-
tentional pull (Beal et al., 2005). Conscientiousness goals reflect recent
research suggesting that the eponymous personality trait of con-
scientiousness relies on motivational factors to manifest in situations,
namely goals to be industrious and organized with tasks (McCabe &
Fleeson, 2016). Given that mindfulness also entails a rather diligent
approach to tasks, it is possible that its strong, but unexplained corre-
lation with conscientiousness (Giluk, 2009), could be because they
manifest through analogous situational motivations. Because the mo-
tivational bases of mindfulness are largely unknown but are thought in
metacognitive practice to be relatively distinct from the motivations
that underlie other ways of engaging with tasks, it is therefore im-
portant to see whether the motivational factors that enhance con-
scientiousness overlap only minimally with mindfulness. The final on-
task attentional pull construct, positive social interactions, has been dis-
cussed by organizational scholars (e.g., Kudesia, 2019; Reb, Sim,
Chintakananda, & Bhave, 2015; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006), but so far has
been studied at the between-person level, at which positive interactions
with parents (Pepping & Duvenage, 2016) and supervisors (Reb,
Narayanan, & Ho, 2015) relate to trait mindfulness. We explore how its
effects come about at the within-person situational level, as positive
social interactions help people allocate their cognitive resources to
5
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
tasks, by reducing the need to monitor the actions of others (Mayer &
Gavin, 2005). Focusing on this interpersonal antecedent helps empha-
size that, indeed, factors beyond the individual can still influence their
mindfulness levels in situations.
2.1.2. Off-task attentional demands
Moving to off-task attentional demands, hindrance stressors entail the
uniquely institutional features of situations that limit the ability to al-
locate resources toward tasks, like busy work and other hassles (LePine,
LePine, & Jackson, 2004). They therefore capture one of the most
salient aspects of work design that are known to pose off-task atten-
tional demands, which is why they are a major contributor to failures of
engagement in the workplace (LePine et al., 2004; Podsakoff, LePine, &
LePine, 2007). To the extent that hindrances negatively influence
mindfulness, we can confirm that mindfulness relies on the allocation of
limited resources—and if capacity or motivational factors reduce its
negative influence, we will have identified a crucial buffer for mind-
fulness in organizations. Finally, as noted previously, technology use can
divert resources away from tasks (Ward et al., 2017) and thereby impair
mindfulness (Kabat-Zinn, 2016), although others suggest that tech-
nology may be actively used to complete tasks with mindfulness (Levy,
2017). The effect of technology use on mindfulness may therefore de-
pend on whether it is being used for passive purposes like social media
or videos or for active purposes like research or word processing. The
former should erode mindfulness whereas the latter may enhance it.
This demand was selected primarily for its implications for this prac-
tical debate.
2.2. Theorizing of situational antecedents
In selecting these situational antecedents, we sought to maintain
parsimony in the total number of constructs while also providing a
relatively broad exploration of the space of such antecedents. Namely,
these antecedents concern: the tasks people perform, the tools they use
in doing so, their goals in engaging the task, hindrances that limit their
progress, and interactions they have along the way. They also help
address important outstanding questions in mindfulness research, such
as its divergent validity with related constructs and the practical debate
over its relation to technology. We also sought to maintain parsimony
in that we do not separately theorize distinct effects of situations on
mindful attention relative to mindful metacognition. The latter choice
aligns with Baas and colleagues’ (2014) distinction between the “uni-
formity hypothesis” and the “differential hypothesis” in their study of
mindfulness and creativity, where their hypotheses concern simply
whether mindfulness components function in a uniform or different
manner, but not why. At the current early stage of theorizing, where
most organizational scholars only assess mindful attention, there is
value even in just assessing both dimensions. From there, in the spirit of
abduction (Behfar & Okhuysen, 2018), we can note any differential
results and theorize about the causes of those differences a posteriori in
the discussion, rather than attempting to formulate them a priori. In
order to take advantage of the replications across studies, such theo-
rizing about the effects of situational antecedents and the differential
results for mindfulness components occurs in the general discussion
after presenting both the exploratory and confirmatory studies.
3. Study 1: Exploratory ESM with undergraduate business
students
3.1. Participants and procedure
Participants were 205 undergraduate business students at a public
university in the United States and received course credit (Mage = 23;
54% male). They completed an initial assessment of cognitive resource
levels and a proxy for metacognitive beliefs—as well as trait assess-
ments of mindful attention (Brown & Ryan, 2003) and mindful
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
metacognition (Fresco et al., 2007). These measures will soon be de-
tailed. Approximately five days later, they began experience sampling,
completing surveys of their state mindfulness and situational features
thrice daily (9:30 AM, 2:30 PM, 7:30 PM) for seven consecutive
weekdays (i.e., they were not surveyed on the weekends).
The experience sampling data contain 3,338 responses (77% re-
sponse rate). Using estimates from prior work, we calculated that our
sample size was adequate to detect small or moderate sized cross-level
interaction effects, which were most likely (see Mathieu, Aguinis,
Culpepper, & Chen, 2012). Following best practices for experience
sampling (e.g., Fisher & To, 2012), we selected survey items that were
concisely worded, previously validated for experience sampling when-
ever possible, retained 3–5 items for each construct to test internal
reliability, and anchored items on a 7-pt Likert scale to increase
variability in responses. None of the initial assessment measures cor-
related with experience sampling response rates (p > .250), limiting
bias concerns.
Because our hypotheses concerned antecedents of mindfulness, we
sought to ensure greater temporal ordering of measures. Namely, when
participants received each experience sampling request, they were first
asked to report their mindfulness levels immediately prior to receiving
the request. And then, after reporting their mindfulness levels, parti-
cipants were asked to think back over the time period since their last
experience sampling report (or since the start of the day for the first
daily report) and to only use their experiences within that time period
to inform their responses to the subsequent items. Further, for questions
with a specific referent (skill-challenge balance of specific tasks, posi-
tivity of specific social interactions), participants were required to enter
a brief text description of the task or the person referred to in their
response. By invoking narrative structures of temporal order and
identifying specific referents, we used conversational norms to reduce
threats to inference, such as those related to reverse-causality (Schwarz,
1999).
3.2. Measures
3.2.1. Initial assessment measures
Cognitive resources. Cognitive resources were assessed by Raven’s
advanced progressive matrices, in which a complex visual pattern is
created by a 3x3 matrix that has one missing cell, and participants must
select one of eight possible solutions that, if inserted into the missing
cell, would complete the overall visual pattern. We used 20 matrix
problems which, in line with other organizational scholars (e.g., Rafaeli
et al., 2012), were from Levels 2 and 3, but not Level 1, as they have
more variability (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998). This assessment has
been considered among the best for general mental ability (Spearman,
1946), thus making it well-suited to capture individual differences in
overall cognitive resource level (Ackerman, 1988; Kanfer & Ackerman,
1989). In particular, it captures the ability to process information and
manage its use in working memory, which is central to the performance
of mental tasks (Carpenter, Just, & Shell, 1990). It has also been im-
plicated in situation-specific resource re-allocation (van der Meer et al.,
2010).
Resource beliefs. Because no specific measure of metacognitive be-
liefs in mindfulness had been developed, we used the closest available
measure as a proxy. This measure captures beliefs about whether sus-
tained allocation of resources feels fatiguing or energizing, rather than
whether it is possible to sustain allocation despite those feelings. This
distinction matters, as mindfulness emphasizes that feelings like fatigue
will occur, but need not determine resource allocation—as we can
monitor these feelings as we sustain attention by recognizing that they
are not objective. Despite these reservations, we used a proxy measure
of resource beliefs using a 6-item scale that gauges the belief that sus-
tained allocation feels energizing rather than fatiguing: e.g., “After a
strenuous mental activity, you feel energized for further challenging
activities” (Job, Dweck, & Walton, 2010).
6
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
3.2.2. Experience sampling measures
Mindfulness. Participants reported their mindfulness levels im-
mediately prior to receiving the experience sampling request using two
scales. The first assessed mindful attention using the 5-item state Mindful
Attention Awareness Scale: e.g., “I was doing something without paying
attention” (reverse-scored; Brown & Ryan, 2003), which is the most
commonly used measure within organizational research (Sutcliffe et al.,
2016). The second assessed mindful metacognition using 5 items adapted
from the Experiences Questionnaire: e.g., “I was able to separate myself
from my thoughts and feelings” (Fresco et al., 2007), which is a mea-
sure of this component validated for everyday contexts, rather than
after meditation (Bernstein et al., 2015).
Participants then reported the presence of the following situational
features:
Skill-challenge balance. Participants reported skill-challenge balance
using 4 items from state flow measures: e.g., “I felt I was competent
enough to meet the high demands of the situation” (Jackson & Eklund,
2002; Payne, Jackson, Noh, & Stine-Morrow, 2011).
Conscientiousness goals. Participants reported conscientiousness goals
using a 4-item scale entailing goals to be industrious (“How much were
you trying to get tasks done?”) and organized (“How much were you
trying to use time effectively?”) (McCabe & Fleeson, 2016).
Hindrance stressors. Participants reported hindrance stressors using a
3-item scale: e.g., “How much time did you spend on ‘busy work’ for
your classes?” (LePine et al., 2004).
Technology use. Participants reported technology use with a 4-item
scale that captures both active uses (“How much were you utilizing
technology for learning purposes [Wikipedia, Google, etc.]?” and “How
much were you utilizing technology to accomplish tasks [word pro-
cessing, note-taking, spreadsheets, etc.]?”) and passive uses (“How
much were you spending time on social media [Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, etc.]?” and “How much were you consuming digital en-
tertainment [YouTube, Netflix, podcasts, etc.]?”) of technology.
Social interactions. Participants reported positive social interactions
using a 3-item scale (“How much did you like the other person in the
interaction?,” “How much did you trust the other person in the inter-
action?,” “How well did you get along with the other person in the
interaction?”) adapted from prior work (Fleeson & Leicht, 2006). Par-
ticipants responded to this question only if they had social interactions
during the relevant time period, which they did in approximately 80%
of the responses (N = 2,686 responses for the 205 participants).
3.3. Analytical approach
3.3.1. Multilevel model specification
We analyzed the data using mixed-effects models to account for
their multilevel structure, in which multiple experience sampling re-
ports (Level 1) were nested within participants (Level 2), who have one
report each for their cognitive resources and resource beliefs (Pinheiro
& Bates, 2000). In line with best practices (Aguinis, Gottfredson, &
Culpepper, 2013; Hofmann & Gavin, 1998), all Level 1 predictors were
person-mean centered and random intercepts were estimated. Doing so
removes average values of each predictor for participants, so that model
coefficients represent fluctuations above or below typical levels, as is
appropriate for within-person analyses. The Level 2 variables of cog-
nitive resources and resource beliefs were z-transformed to improve the
interpretability of coefficients, given their different scaling, and parti-
cularly the interpretability of the cross-level interactions that test
whether they moderate the effects of situational Level 1 features on
state mindfulness.
As multilevel scholars have noted, key theoretical and empirical
differences exist between emergent and contextual effects (Kozlowski &
Klein, 2000). In an experience sampling context, this distinction man-
ifests in differences among within-person results and between-person
results (Beal, 2015; Hamaker, Nesselroade, & Molenaar, 2007). The
effects of any antecedent can occur at the within-person level (e.g.,
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
when a person acts more conscientious than they usually do, does their
mindfulness increase?) or at the between-person level (e.g., do people
who tend to be more conscientious also tend to be more mindful?). The
former within-person effect is more emergent, as it captures how fluc-
tuations in antecedents produce momentary states of mindfulness,
whereas the latter between-person effect better captures how more
stable and contextual aspects of the antecedent impact mindfulness. In
this study, we examine the possibility for both these types of effects by
predicting mindfulness simultaneously from the person-mean centered
antecedents, which are at Level 1, and the participant’s average levels
of each antecedent, which are Level 2 variables. Clarifying whether
antecedents exert influence through the within-person or between-
person level, or both, can better surface their underlying theoretical
mechanisms, and therefore serve as a useful guide for future research
(Kievit, Frankenhuis, Waldorp, & Borsboom, 2013).
3.3.2. Temporal model specification
In line with Bliese and Ployhart (2002), we used a four step process
to model the effects of time. First, we created a “time” variable at the
continuous measurement level, which represented the number of hours
elapsed since the first experience sampling survey was sent. Second, we
tested whether mindfulness components changed over time by mod-
eling the fixed effect of time as a predictor of each mindfulness com-
ponent. We first tested for a linear fixed effect, and then we tested for a
quadratic fixed effect. Third, after establishing the functional form of
the relation between time and mindfulness, we added a random slope
for time, using the likelihood ratio test to determine whether doing so
improved model fit. Fourth, we tested whether an autoregressive error
structure—a first-order autocorrelation with a continuous time covar-
iate—improved model fit. The data support a linear fixed effect and
random slope for both mindfulness components.
3.3.3. False positive reduction
In this exploratory study, we test a broad set of antecedents of
mindfulness, as is appropriate given that this topic is under-researched,
and we wanted multiple constructs each to indicate on-task attentional
pull and off-task attentional demands. By treating this study as ex-
ploratory, we can simply estimate effect sizes of the antecedents and
identify promising areas for future study. Yet, testing a broad set of
antecedents necessitates multiple comparisons: increasing risk of false
positives and reducing the odds that any statistically significant results
will replicate (Asendorpf et al., 2013). We took two steps to address this
issue. First, we included random slopes for all situational predictors.
When a random slope is included, the corresponding fixed effect is
tested against an error term that captures its variability across partici-
pants, which helps to reduce false positives (see Barr, Levy, Scheepers,
& Tily, 2013; Schielzeth & Forstmeier, 2009). Second, and more di-
rectly, for each set of analyses (i.e., testing the Level 1 and Level 2
predictors of each mindfulness component and the person-by-situation
interactions for both Level 2 predictors), we adjusted p-values to
maintain a 5% false-discovery rate (Benjamini & Hochberg, 1995).
Doing so substantially reduces the chance of incorrectly rejecting null
hypotheses, while nonetheless allowing for an exploration of the broad
set of antecedents of mindfulness within our framework.
3.4. Results
The means, standard deviations, internal reliabilities, and inter-
correlations among all study variables can be seen in Table 1. The
mixed-effects models of antecedents appear in Table 2 and the cross-
level interactions appear in Table 3. Please note that, for Tables 2 and 3,
although we tested each antecedent and interaction in a separate
model, we present all the results in a single table, as other exploratory
studies have done to facilitate comparisons (see Kane et al., 2007).
7
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
3.4.1. Variance partitioning of mindfulness
To quantify the degree to which participants’ state mindfulness le-
vels remain consistent across situations or fluctuate based on their si-
tuations, we computed intraclass correlations for each mindfulness
component. We found that 32.56% of mindful attention occurs be-
tween-people (remains consistent across situations) and 67.44% occurs
within-people (fluctuates based on the current situation). And, simi-
larly, 38.36% of mindful metacognition occurs between-people and
61.64% occurs within-people. The considerable amount of within-
person variability suggests that situational features may function as
antecedents, thus accounting for some of this variability.
3.4.2. Antecedents of mindfulness
We first tested whether cognitive resources and resource beliefs,
which were both measured at the initial assessment, predicted state
mindfulness. With p-values adjusted to reduce false discovery rates,
cognitive resources marginally predicted mindful attention, γ = 0.11
(95% CI = –0.01, 0.22), t(203) = 1.79, p = .075, and resource beliefs
significantly predicted it: γ = 0.17 (95% CI = 0.06, 0.29), t
(203) = 2.90, p = .008. Cognitive resources predicted mindful meta-
cognition: γ = 0.13 (95% CI = 0.01, 0.25), t(203) = 2.06, p = .041, as
did resource beliefs: γ = 0.15 (95% CI = 0.03, 0.28), t(203) = 2.45,
p = .030. Thus, although overall cognitive resource level and resource
beliefs do predict state mindfulness, they all straddled the threshold of
significance aside from the relation between resource beliefs and
mindful attention, which provides partial support for Proposition 1.
On-task attentional pull factors. We then tested whether, in line with
Proposition 3, situational features indicating on-task attentional pull
predicted state mindfulness. Although conscientiousness goals at the
within-person level predicted both mindful attention, γ = 0.07 (95%
CI = 0.02, 0.12), t(3,126) = 3.06, p = .006, as well as mindful me-
tacognition, γ = 0.08 (95% CI = 0.04, 0.13), t(3,126) = 3.73,
p < .001, conscientiousness goals at the between-person level did not
predict either mindfulness component (ps > .250). Skill-challenge
balance at the within-person level predicted greater mindful attention,
γ = 0.09 (95% CI = 0.04, 0.14), t(3,126) = 3.38, p = .002, and
mindful metacognition, γ = 0.15 (95% CI = 0.10, 0.19), t
(3,126) = 6.37, p < .001, but at the between-person level, only pre-
dicted greater mindful metacognition, γ = 0.46 (95% CI = 0.29, 0.63),
t(203) = 5.34, p < .001. Its relation to mindful attention did not
approach significance: γ = 0.06 (95% CI = –0.11, 0.23), t
(203) = 0.65, p > .250. Whereas positive social interactions at the
within-level predicts greater mindful metacognition, γ = 0.08 (95%
CI = 0.04, 0.13), t(3,126) = 3.69, p < .001, better than it does
mindful attention, γ = 0.05 (95% CI = –0.01, 0.10), t(3,126) = 1.66,
p = .146, at the between-person level, it predicts both mindful atten-
tion, γ = 0.16 (95% CI = 0.03, 0.30), t(203) = 2.46, p = .026, and
mindful metacognition, γ = 0.32 (95% CI = 0.18, 0.45), t
(203) = 4.57, p < .001.
Off-task attentional demand factors. Turning to attentional demands,
we find that passive technology use at the between-person level nega-
tively predicted both mindful attention, γ = –0.24 (95% CI = –0.36,
–0.11), t(203) = –3.63, p = .001, as well as mindful metacognition,
γ = –0.28 (95% CI = –0.41, –0.15), t(203) = –4.23, p < .001.
Further, whereas passive technology use at the within-person level was
the single strongest predictor of mindful attention, γ = –0.11 (95%
CI = –0.11, –0.07), t(3,126) = –4.77, p < .001, it did not even ap-
proach significance for mindful metacognition, γ = –0.01 (95%
CI = –0.05, 0.03), t(3,126) = –0.30, p > .250. Active technology use,
in contrast, did not approach significance for either mindfulness at-
tention or mindful metacognition at either the within-person level
(ps > .250) or the between-person level (ps = .146, .124, respec-
tively). Like passive technology use, at the between-person level, hin-
drance stressors was a strong negative predictor of both mindful at-
tention, γ = –0.21 (95% CI = –0.32, –0.09), t(203) = –3.60, p = .001,
and mindful metacognition, γ = –0.24 (95% CI = –0.36, –0.11), t
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among variables (Study 1).
Mean SD ICC(1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Trait Mindful Attention 4.23 1.03 – (0.84)

2. Trait Mindful Metacognition 4.96 0.90 – 0.38*** (0.81)
3. Trait Cognitive Resources 0.34 0.18 – 0.17* 0.05 (0.75)
4. Trait Resource Beliefs 3.37 1.11 – 0.24*** 0.33*** 0.01 (0.84)
5. Mindful Attention 4.70 1.45 0.32 0.51*** 0.34*** 0.10 0.20** (0.88) 0.28*** 0.08*** –0.14*** 0.00 –0.11*** 0.06*** 0.04*
6. Mindful Metacognition 4.63 1.38 0.39 0.38*** 0.45*** 0.14* 0.17* 0.44*** (0.89) 0.09*** 0.00 0.01 –0.01 0.15*** 0.10***
7. Conscientiousness Goals 4.31 1.66 0.24 0.03 0.11 0.00 0.03 –0.02 0.07 (0.94) –0.15*** 0.45*** 0.38*** 0.34*** –0.01
8. Passive Technology Use 2.62 1.48 0.34 –0.16* –0.11 –0.33*** 0.01 0.24*** –0.27*** –0.05 (0.69) 0.14*** 0.14*** –0.07*** –0.09***
9. Active Technology Use 3.10 1.82 0.25 –0.03 0.16* –0.16* 0.10 –0.10 –0.11 0.49*** 0.47*** (0.81) 0.55*** 0.22*** –0.02
10. Hindrance Stressors 3.08 1.59 0.37 –0.11 0.00 –0.26*** 0.02 –0.23*** –0.25*** 0.40*** 0.49*** 0.64*** (0.82) 0.16*** –0.03
11. Skill-Challenge Balance 4.76 1.35 0.23 0.05 0.21** 0.05 0.11 0.03 0.35*** 0.37*** –0.04 0.06 0.01 (0.88) 0.04*
12. Positive Social Interactions 5.52 1.41 0.38 0.04 0.12 0.07 –0.05 0.15* 0.32*** 0.11 –0.20** –0.11 –0.20** 0.29*** (0.93)

Note: N = 205 participants, n̄ = 3,338 responses (2,687 for positive social interactions). Variables above the horizonal collected at initial assessment, variables below
collected during experience sampling. Standard deviations (SD) pertain to un-centered variables. Reliabilities (α) appear along the diagonal. Correlations below the
diagonal are between-person, representing averaged values. Correlations above the diagonal are within-person, representing person-centered variables. Correlations
between initial assessment and experience sampling variables necessarily refer to between-person variables, as its correlations among trait variables and within-
person centered variables are fixed to zero by definition.
* p < .05.
** p < .01.
*** p < .001.

(203) = 3.98, p = .001, but at the within-person level, it only predicted
mindful attention, γ = –0.10 (95% CI = –0.14, –0.05), t
(3,126) = –4.35, p < .001, and did not approach significance for
mindful metacognition (p > .250). Thus, although the contextual
presence of off-task attentional demands is associated with reduced
mindfulness, the situational effects seem to particularly erode mindful
attention, not mindful metacognition.
3.4.3. Interactions predicting mindfulness components
In Proposition 4, we suggested that situational features can make
cognitive resource level or the beliefs that motivate resource allocation
more or less facilitative of mindfulness. Statistically, this entails an
interaction between people’s cognitive resources or resource beliefs and
situational features. As shown in Table 3, only two such interactions
remained significant after correcting for multiple comparisons. Inter-
estingly, both interactions concerned the conditions under which skill-
challenge balance enhances mindful attention, but pointed in opposite
directions. Cognitive resources positively interacted with skill-chal-
lenge balance in predicting mindful attention, γ = 0.08 (95%
CI = 0.03, 0.13), t(3,125) = 3.20, p = .008, whereas resource beliefs
negatively interacted with skill-challenge balance, γ = –0.07 (95%
CI = –0.12, –0.03), t(3,125) = –3.03, p = .015. These interactions are
plotted in Fig. 2—and to further interpret these interactions, we per-
formed a region of significance analysis (see Bauer & Curran, 2005).
This analysis reveals the range of values for cognitive resource level and
resource beliefs under which skill-challenge balance is a significant
predictor of mindful attention. Skill-challenge balance becomes a po-
sitive predictor of mindful attention when cognitive resources exceed
–0.45 (b = 0.05, SE = 0.03, p = .050), a range that includes ap-
proximately 58% of our sample, as well as when resource beliefs fall
below 0.43 (b = 0.05, SE = 0.03, p = .050), a range that includes
approximately 65% of our sample. This pattern of results aligns with
Proposition 4 that when situations demonstrate attentional pull, those
with a higher resource level to allocate will better be able to mindfully

Table 2
Predictors of state mindfulness (Study 1).
Mindful attention Mindful metacognition

Model predictor γ 95% CI t test γ 95% CI t test

+
Cognitive Resources 0.11 –0.01, 0.22 1.79 0.13 0.01, 0.25 2.06*
Resource Beliefs 0.17 0.06, 0.29 2.90** 0.15 0.03, 0.28 2.45*
Conscientiousness Goals(w) 0.07 0.02, 0.12 3.06** 0.08 0.04, 0.13 3.73***
Conscientiousness Goals(b) –0.02 –0.16, 0.12 –0.24 0.08 –0.06, 0.22 1.09
Passive Technology Use(w) –0.11 –0.16, –0.07 –4.77*** –0.01 –0.05, 0.03 –0.30
Passive Technology Use(b) –0.24 –0.36, –0.11 –3.63** –0.28 –0.41, –0.15 –4.23***
Active Technology Use(w) 0.00 –0.04, 0.03 –0.17 0.01 –0.03, 0.04 0.68
Active Technology Use(b) –0.10 –0.22, 0.02 –1.61 –0.11 –0.24, –0.01 –1.74
Hindrance Stressors(w) –0.10 –0.14, –0.05 –4.35*** –0.02 –0.06, 0.03 –0.79
Hindrance Stressors(b) –0.21 –0.32, –0.09 –3.60** –0.24 –0.36, –0.12 –3.98***
Skill-Challenge Balance(w) 0.09 0.04, 0.14 3.38** 0.15 0.10, 0.19 6.37***
Skill-Challenge Balance(b) 0.06 –0.11, 0.23 0.65 0.46 0.29, 0.63 5.34***
Positive Social Interactions(w) 0.05 –0.01, 0.10 1.66 0.08 0.04, 0.13 3.69***
Positive Social Interactions(b) 0.16 0.03, 0.30 2.45* 0.32 0.18, 0.45 4.57***

Note: N = 205 participants, n̄ = 3,338 responses (2,687 for positive social interactions). Dotted lines separate estimates from each of the distinct models that appear
in this table. For models including experience sampling variables: (w) = within-person (centered predictor), (b) = between-person (averaged predictor). Significance
levels are adjusted for false discovery rate.
+
p < .10.
* p < .05.
** p < .01.
*** p < .001.

8
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 3
Cross-level interactions predicting state mindfulness (Study 1).
Mindful attention Mindful metacognition

Model predictor γ 95% CI t test γ 95% CI t test

Cognitive Resources*
Conscientiousness Goals 0.04 –0.01, 0.09 1.63 0.00 –0.04, 0.05 0.06
Passive Technology Use 0.01 –0.04, 0.06 0.42 –0.03 –0.07, 0.01 –1.54
Active Technology Use 0.01 –0.03, 0.04 0.30 0.00 –0.03, 0.03 –0.02
Hindrance Stressors 0.00 –0.04, 0.05 0.13 –0.04 –0.08, 0.01 –1.71
Skill-Challenge Balance 0.08 0.03, 0.13 3.12** 0.04 –0.01, 0.08 1.65
Positive Social Interactions 0.02 –0.03, 0.07 0.77 –0.01 –0.06, 0.03 –0.63
Resource Beliefs*
Conscientiousness Goals –0.02 –0.07, 0.02 –0.91 0.05 0.01, 0.10 2.52
Passive Technology Use –0.03 –0.07, 0.02 –1.21 0.01 –0.02, 0.05 0.73
Active Technology Use –0.02 –0.05, 0.02 –1.05 0.00 –0.03, 0.03 0.09
Hindrance Stressors 0.00 –0.04, 0.05 0.17 0.02 –0.02, 0.07 1.19
Skill-Challenge Balance –0.07 –0.12, –0.03 –3.09* 0.03 –0.02, 0.07 1.23
Positive Social Interactions 0.01 –0.05, 0.06 0.23 0.00 –0.04, 0.05 0.20

Note: N = 205 participants, n̄ = 3,338 responses (2,687 for positive social interactions). Estimates on each line are from distinct models. Significance levels are
adjusted for false discovery rate.
* p < .05.
** p < .01.
*** p < .001.

3.5. Preliminary discussion and motivation for confirmatory studies

This exploratory study reveals that mindfulness is influenced both

Fig. 2. Cross-level interactions with skill-challenge balance (Study 1).
attend to ongoing events, as they have more available resources to al-
locate (cf. van der Meer et al., 2010). And, conversely, when people
lack beliefs that motivate them to allocate their cognitive resources, the
skill-challenge balance of a situation can play a compensatory role, as
such situations have high attentional pull that reduces their need to
self-regulate in order to maintain on-task attention.
by on-task attentional pull and off-task attentional demands. It also
provides some supportive evidence that not only do cognitive resources
and resource beliefs influence mindfulness, but that their influence may
depend on situational features. We unpack these patterns of results and
consider how they may inform critical outstanding questions regarding
mindfulness in the general discussion after first replicating and ex-
tending these results in two subsequent confirmatory studies. These
confirmatory studies are designed to overcome several limitations with
this exploratory study.
First, the exploratory study had a cross-sectional design. This design
allowed us to better capture the immediate effect of situations on state
mindfulness and increased our Level 1 sample size, which would be
halved if we assessed antecedents in one survey and state mindfulness
in another. While this design may be appropriate for an exploratory
study, in the confirmatory studies, we temporally separate state
mindfulness from its predictors to reduce common method bias.
Second, although the variables in this study were relevant to workplace
situations, the subjects of the study were still undergraduates, which is
not the population we intend our results to generalize to. We address
this limitation with confirmatory studies on working populations.
Third, the measure of resource beliefs used in this exploratory study
does not directly assess the metacognitive beliefs relevant to mind-
fulness, which are central to our propositions. Thus, we developed and
validated a 12-item measure to assess metacognitive beliefs in mind-
fulness (MBM). All MBM items appear in the Appendix and a con-
firmatory factor analysis on a sample of working adults reveals better fit
for a 3-factor higher-order model than for alternate models, suggesting
that metacognitive beliefs are best seen as a higher construct with three
lower-order dimensions of attentional sufficiency, virtue of monitoring,
and map-terrain differentiation, as theorized (see Table 4). Fourth, this
measure of metacognitive beliefs, coupled with a study design that
temporally separates state mindfulness from its predictors, also makes it
possible to properly explore Proposition 2 in the subsequent studies. We
do so by comparing the relative influence of metacognitive beliefs and
mental fatigue on mindfulness. Fifth, considering the explained var-
iance in state mindfulness, the models had an average marginal R2GLMM
of 0.01 for mindful attention and 0.03 for mindful metacognition, and a
model including all situational features had a marginal R2GLMM of 0.06
for mindful attention and 0.13 for mindful metacognition (Johnson,

9
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 4 4. Study 2: Experience sampling study on sample of hospital

Omnibus confirmatory factor analyses of the Metacognitive Beliefs in nurses
Mindfulness scale.
Model χ2 df SRMR CFI TLI SCDT 4.1. Participants and procedures

Baseline Model 1 99.23** 51 0.06 0.95 0.94 Participants were 168 nurses in a hospital (~84% female;
Three-factor, higher order
~4.25 years of work experience), who worked in one of nine units in-
MBM model with 12 items
Model 2 472.37** 54 0.17 0.61 0.52 373.14** cluding intensive care, cardiac care, bone marrow transplant, and in-
Unidimensional MBM patient rehabilitation. Nurses were asked to report their metacognitive
model beliefs and current mental fatigue using a pre-shift survey—and then,
Model 3 327.80** 53 0.15 0.74 0.68 228.57**
after their shift ended approximately twelve hours later, nurses re-
Two-factor model (VM and
AS combined; MD alone)
ported the situational antecedents experienced and their current level
Model 4 211.42** 53 0.09 0.85 0.81 112.19** of mindfulness. In total, they provided 999 post-shift responses (an
Two-factor model (VM and average of ~6 responses per participant), for which there were 545
MD combined; AS alone) corresponding pre-shift surveys (55% response rate).
Model 5 263.33** 53 0.13 0.80 0.75 164.10**
Two-factor model (AS and
MD combined; VM alone) 4.2. Measures

Note: AS = attentional sufficiency, VM = virtue of monitoring, MD = map-
terrain differentiation. SRMR = root-mean-square residual,
CFA = comparative fit index, TLI = Tucker-Lewis index, and
SCDT = sequential chi-square difference test.
* p < .05
** p < .01
*** p < .001.
2014), which are modest to average effect sizes (Richard, Bond, &
Stokes-Zoota, 2003). Perhaps metacognitive beliefs may account for
more variability in state mindfulness.
To overcome these issues, we simultaneously collected data from
two working samples. These samples included nurses, who reported
their pre-shift metacognitive beliefs and mental fatigue, and their
mindfulness and situational features after their shift ended, and a
community sample, who provided reports before, during, and after
their workday. Given practical concerns about survey length with our
inclusion of measures for metacognitive beliefs and mental fatigue, and
because nurses are not permitted to carry their smartphones during
their shifts, we excluded technology use items from these studies. As the
nursing study design is narrower in scope (e.g., we were able to secure
buy-in for experience sampling only), we present this study first, and
then present the community sample, although data for both were both
collected simultaneously.
Pre-shift survey. Participants reported metacognitive beliefs using the
12-item MBM (see Appendix). And they reported mental fatigue using 4
items from the State Self-Control Capacity Scale (Ciarocco, Twenge,
Muraven, & Tice, 2004), e.g., “I feel mentally exhausted,” which has
been previously validated for experience sampling in organizations
(e.g., Christian, Eisenkraft, & Kapadia, 2015).
Post-shift survey. Participants reported their current levels of mindful
attention using the 5-item state Mindful Attention Awareness Scale
(Brown & Ryan, 2003) and mindful metacognition using 5 items adapted
from the Experiences Questionnaire (Fresco et al., 2007). Thinking
about their shift, they then reported their conscientiousness goals using
the 4-item scale (McCabe & Fleeson, 2016), skill-challenge balance using
4 items from state flow measures (Jackson & Eklund, 2002; Payne et al.,
2011), hindrance stressors using a 3-item scale (LePine et al., 2004), and
positive social interactions using the 3-item scale (Fleeson & Leicht,
2006).
4.3. Analytical approach
We analyzed our data using mixed-effects models, following a si-
milar process as in Study 1. We also included fixed effects for each of
the nine different nursing units represented in our data.
4.4. Results

The means, standard deviations, internal reliabilities, and inter-

correlations among study variables can be seen in Table 5—along with
the variance partitioning of experience sampling variables. In these
data, 58% of variability in metacognitive beliefs occurred between-
people, as did 53% of variability for mindful attention, and 34% for

Table 5
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among variables (Study 2).
Mean SD ICC(1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Metacognitive Beliefs (T1) 5.81 0.71 0.58 (0.88) –0.45*** 0.08 0.08 –0.02 –0.05 0.13** 0.12***
2. Mental Fatigue (T1) 4.63 1.38 0.39 –0.49*** (0.88) –0.06 0.01 –0.02 0.04 –0.07 –0.04
3. Conscientiousness Goals (T2) 5.57 1.25 0.67 0.25** –0.09 (0.91) 0.18*** 0.08** 0.10** 0.01 0.05
4. Skill-Challenge Balance (T2) 5.55 1.03 0.43 0.58*** –0.30*** 0.27*** (0.86) 0.07* 0.02 0.18*** 0.22***
5. Positive Social Interactions (T2) 5.86 1.27 0.43 0.27*** –0.19* 0.22** 0.34*** (0.96) –0.16*** 0.10** 0.08*
6. Hindrance Stressors (T2) 2.64 1.36 0.53 –0.21** 0.21** 0.00 –0.14 –0.43*** (0.83) –0.27*** –0.20***
7. Mindful Attention (T2) 5.09 1.45 0.53 0.32*** –0.46*** 0.01 0.21** 0.26*** –0.49*** (0.89) 0.25***
8. Mindful Metacognition (T2) 5.28 1.20 0.34 0.41*** –0.21** 0.04 0.44*** 0.25** –0.34*** 0.32*** (0.89)

Note: N = 168 participants, n̄ = 999 responses (545 between T1 and T2 variables). Standard deviations (SD) pertain to un-centered variables. Reliabilities (α) appear
along the diagonal. Correlations below the diagonal are between-person, representing averaged values. Correlations above the diagonal are within-person, re-
presenting person-centered variables.
* p < .05
** p < .01.
*** p < .001.

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C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 6
Predictors of state mindfulness (Study 2).
Mindful attention Mindful metacognition

Model predictor γ 95% CI t test γ 95% CI t test

Metacognitive Beliefs(w) 0.33 0.07, 0.60 2.50* 0.19 –0.01, 0.39 1.89+
Metacognitive Beliefs (b) 0.68 0.38, 0.99 4.40*** 0.72 0.50, 0.95 6.37***
Mental Fatigue(w) –0.08 –0.17, 0.01 –1.74+ –0.04 –0.12, 0.05 –0.84
Mental Fatigue(b) –0.46 –0.60, –0.33 –6.69*** –0.19 –0.31, –0.06 –3.03**
Conscientiousness Goals(w) 0.03 –0.13, 0.19 0.37 0.08 –0.06, 0.22 1.09
Conscientiousness Goals(b) 0.05 –0.11, 0.22 0.66 0.02 –0.11, 0.14 0.28
Hindrance Stressors(w) –0.30 –0.39, –0.20 –6.15*** –0.16 –0.27, –0.05 –2.83**
Hindrance Stressors(b) –0.49 –0.63, –0.34 –6.71*** –0.27 –0.39, –0.15 –4.53***
Skill-Challenge Balance(w) 0.22 0.07, 0.37 2.89** 0.24 0.11, 0.37 3.51***
Skill-Challenge Balance(b) 0.36 0.14, 0.58 3.19** 0.47 0.31, 0.63 5.80***
Positive Social Interactions(w) 0.09 –0.01, 0.18 1.64+ 0.06 –0.02, 0.15 1.44
Positive Social Interactions(b) 0.32 0.14, 0.50 3.49** 0.16 0.02, 0.31 2.22*

Note: N = 168 participants, n̄ = 999 responses (545 for metacognitive beliefs and mental fatigue). Dotted lines separate estimates from each of the distinct models
that appear in this table. All predictors variables are within-person.
+
p < .10.
* p < .05.
** p < .01.
*** p < .001.

mindful metacognition.
4.4.1. Antecedents of mindfulness
Pre-shift. Despite the modest response rate for pre-shift surveys, we
nonetheless explored whether pre-shift metacognitive beliefs and
mental fatigue predicted mindfulness at post-shift, treating the results
as provisional relative to our next study. As shown in Table 6, meta-
cognitive beliefs at the within-person level significantly predicted
mindful attention, γ = 0.33 (95% CI = 0.07, 0.60), t(386) = 2.50,
p = .013, and marginally predicted mindful metacognition, γ = 0.19
(95% CI = –0.01, 0.39), t(386) = 1.89, p = .060. At the between-
person level, metacognitive beliefs predicted significantly greater
mindful attention, γ = 0.68 (95% CI = 0.38, 0.99), t(150) = 4.40,
p < .001, and mindful metacognition, γ = 0.72 (95% CI = 0.50,
0.95), t(150) = 6.37, p < .001. Mental fatigue at the within-person
level marginally predicted less mindful attention, γ = –0.08 (95%
CI = –0.17, 0.01), t(386) = –1.74, p = .082, and did not approach
significance for mindful metacognition, γ = –0.04 (95% CI = –0.12,
0.05), t(386) = –0.84, p > .250. At the between-person level, mental
fatigue significantly predicted less mindful attention, γ = –0.46 (95%
CI = –0.60, –0.33), t(150) = –6.69, p < .001, and mindful meta-
cognition, γ = –0.19 (95% CI = –0.31, –0.06), t(150) = –3.03,
p = .003.
Post-shift. We then tested whether situational features indicating on-
task attentional pull predicted mindfulness (see Table 6). Con-
scientiousness goals did not approach significance for mindful attention
or mindful metacognition at either within-person or between-person
levels (p > .250). Skill-challenge balance at the within-person level
predicted both mindful attention, γ = 0.22 (95% CI = 0.07, 0.37), t
(825) = 2.89, p = .004, and mindful metacognition, γ = 0.24 (95%
CI = 0.11, 0.37), t(161) = 3.51, p = .001. And at the between-person
level, it also predicted mindful attention, γ = 0.36 (95% CI = 0.14,
0.58), t(161) = 3.19, p = .002, and mindful metacognition γ = 0.47
(95% CI = 0.31, 0.63), t(161) = 5.80, p < .001. Whereas positive
social interactions at the within-person level significantly predicted
neither greater mindful attention, γ = 0.09 (95% CI = –0.01, 0.18), t
(825) = 1.85, p = .065, nor mindful metacognition, γ = 0.06 (95%
CI = –0.02, 0.15), t(825) = 1.44, p = .151, at the between-person
level, it predicted both mindful attention, γ = 0.32 (95% CI = 0.14,
0.50), t(161) = 3.49, p = .001, and mindful metacognition, γ = 0.16
(95% CI = 0.02, 0.31), t(161) = 2.22, p = .028. Turning to off-task
attentional demands, we find that, at the within-person level, hindrance
stressors was a strong negative predictor of mindful attention,
γ = –0.30 (95% CI = –0.39, –0.20), t(825) = –6.15, p < .001, and
mindful metacognition, γ = –0.16 (95% CI = –0.27, –0.05), t
(825) = –2.83, p = .005. It was also a strong negative predictor at the
between-person level for mindful attention, γ = –0.49 (95%
CI = –0.63, –0.34), t(161) = –6.71, p < .001, as well as mindful
metacognition, γ = –0.27 (95% CI = –0.39, –0.15), t(161) = –4.53,
p < .001.
4.5. Preliminary discussion and motivation for next study
This study provided initial evidence that metacognitive beliefs re-
ported prior to a work shift predict greater subsequent mindfulness
twelve hours later, in support of our theorizing. We did not, however,
find the expected negative relation between mental fatigue and mind-
fulness. Given the modest response rate for the pre-shift surveys, we
leave open for our next study to replicate that metacognitive beliefs
influence mindfulness, whether mental fatigue has the expected nega-
tive effect, and whether, in line with Proposition 2, metacognitive be-
liefs may compensate for any negative effect of mental fatigue. Because
in this study, as in Study 1, situational antecedents were reported at the
same time as state mindfulness, there is also room to temporally se-
parate metacognitive beliefs and mental fatigue, situational ante-
cedents, and state mindfulness. Finally, unlike in Study 1, we were
unable to collect an initial assessment here, which leaves it to the next
study to replicate the results from Study 1 concerning cognitive re-
sources, resource beliefs, and their interactions with situational ante-
cedents.
5. Study 3: Experience sampling study on community sample of
full-time workers
5.1. Participants and procedure
Participants were 185 community members in a mid-Atlantic city
(Mage = 27; 63% female) with 6 average years full-time work experi-
ence. Participants worked in a variety of industries (65% in healthcare,
11% in finance and banking, 5% each in higher education and manu-
facturing, and 4% in government) and 98% had a bachelor’s degree or
equivalent. They were told the study was about wellbeing and were not
financially compensated but could receive personalized summary me-
trics of features that influence their mindfulness levels. Addressing the
limitations of the prior studies, participants completed an initial as-
sessment that included cognitive resource level and resource beliefs

11
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

variables. Correlations between initial assessment and experience sampling variables necessarily refer to between-person variables, as its correlations among trait variables and within-person centered variables are fixed
variables. Reliabilities (α) appear along the diagonal. Correlations below the diagonal are between-person, representing averaged values. Correlations above the diagonal are within-person, representing person-centered
Note: N = 185 participants, n̄ = 1438 responses. Variables above the horizonal collected at initial assessment, variables below collected during experience sampling. Standard deviations (SD) pertain to un-centered
and, two weeks later, engaged in a 10-workday experience sampling

0.12***
–0.08**

0.15***

0.54***
–0.06*

(0.94)
design (Monday–Friday) where they provided daily reports in three

0.06*

0.02
12
waves. At 7:45 AM before work started, they reported metacognitive
beliefs and mental fatigue, at 1:00 PM halfway through their workday,
they reported on-task and off-task situational features, and at 6:00 PM

–0.09***
–0.13***

0.69***
0.08**

(0.92)
after their workday ended, they reported current state mindfulness le-

0.06*

0.01

0.01
11
vels. Participants provided an average of 27 responses, such that the
experience sampling data contain 5,053 total survey responses (91%
response rate), which, when matched across participants’ three daily

–0.58***
–0.48***
–0.08**
0.19***
0.18***
–0.07**

(0.88)
surveys, totaled into 1,439 complete cases.

–0.04
10
5.2. Measures

–0.35***
0.12***

0.09***

0.23**
(0.96)
Initial assessment. Cognitive resources were assessed with 20 items

0.16*
0.03
0.04
from Raven’s advanced progressive matrices (Raven et al., 1998) and

9
resource beliefs were assessed with the six-item scale (Job et al., 2010).
First experience sampling wave. Participants reported metacognitive

–0.26***
–0.10***

0.42***
0.54***
0.21***

0.30***

0.19**
(0.91)
beliefs using the 12-item MBM and mental fatigue using 4 items
(Ciarocco et al., 2004).

8
Second experience sampling wave. Participants reported con-
scientiousness goals using the 4-item scale (McCabe & Fleeson, 2016),

0.31***

0.25***
0.11***

0.43***
(0.91)

0.16*
0.03
0.02
skill-challenge balance using 4 items from state flow measures (Jackson &

7
Eklund, 2002; Payne et al., 2011), hindrance stressors using a 3-item
scale (LePine et al., 2004), and positive social interactions using the 3-

–0.53***
–0.59***
–0.58***
–0.43***

–0.48***
item scale (Fleeson & Leicht, 2006). Given that they were at work, they

–0.15*

–0.14*
(0.96)
reported social interactions in 99% of their responses.
6
Third experience sampling wave. Participants reported their current
mindful attention using the 5-item state Mindful Attention Awareness

–0.44***
–0.65***

0.67***
0.34***
0.59***
0.30***

0.49***
Scale (Brown & Ryan, 2003) and their mindful metacognition using 5

(0.91)
items adapted from the Experiences Questionnaire (Fresco et al., 2007).
5

5.3. Analytical approach

–0.34***
0.31***

0.27***

0.30***
0.28***
–0.14*
(0.87)

–0.08
We analyzed our data using mixed-effects models, following the 0.13
4

same process as in Study 1. We modeled time with a fixed effect of

workweek (0 = first week, 1 = second week) and a linear fixed effect
(0.76)

–0.12
–0.13
–0.01

–0.05
for time, but not a random effect or autocorrelated errors (Bliese &
0.11

0.02
0.01
0.03
0.03
3

Ployhart, 2002).
–0.27***
–0.32***

5.4. Results
0.52***
0.43***
0.39***

0.24***
0.32***

0.43***
(0.85)
–0.07

0.09
2

The means, standard deviations, internal reliabilities, and inter-

correlations among study variables can be seen in Table 7—along with
–0.34***
–0.37***

the variance partitioning of experience sampling variables. In these

0.54***
0.43***
0.48***

0.34***

0.29***
0.23**
(0.89)

0.17*

0.15*

data, 61% of variability in metacognitive beliefs occurred between-

0.07
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among variables (Study 3).
1

people, as did 57% of variability for mindful attention, and 48% for
mindful metacognition.
ICC(1)

0.61
0.50
0.43
0.55
0.47
0.57
0.57
0.48

5.4.1. Antecedents of mindfulness

–
–
–
–

We first tested whether cognitive resources and resource beliefs, as

measured at the initial assessment, predicted state mindfulness.
1.03
0.90
0.18
1.11
0.94
1.83
1.22
1.20
1.65
1.40
1.54
1.38
SD

Cognitive resources predicted neither mindful attention, γ = 0.03 (95%

CI = –0.15, 0.20), t(183) = 0.29, p > .250, nor mindful metacogni-
Mean

tion, γ = 0.01 (95% CI = –0.13, 0.16), t(183) = 0.18, p > .250,

4.06
4.77
4.23
4.96
0.34
3.37
5.32
3.49
4.92
4.95
5.48
2.95

failing to replicate the findings from Study 1. Resource beliefs, in

contrast, significantly predicted both mindful attention, γ = 0.38 (95%
9. Positive Social Interactions (T2)

CI = 0.21, 0.55), t(183) = 4.42, p < .001, and mindful metacogni-

12. Mindful Metacognition (T3)
7. Conscientiousness Goals (T2)
2. Trait Mindful Metacognition

8. Skill-Challenge Balance (T2)

tion, γ = 0.29 (95% CI = 0.15, 0.43), t(183) = 4.04, p < .001. These
5. Metacognitive Beliefs (T1)

10. Hindrance Stressors (T2)

3. Trait Cognitive Resources

findings replicate those of Study 1 and align with Proposition 1, that

11. Mindful Attention (T3)
1. Trait Mindful Attention

4. Trait Resource Beliefs

mindfulness will rely more on the beliefs that motivate resource allo-
6. Mental Fatigue (T1)

to zero by definition.

cation than the level of overall resources.

Metacognitive beliefs. We next sought to test the predictive validity of
*** p < .001.

our metacognitive beliefs in mindfulness scale. To do so, we ran four

** p < .01.
* p < .05.

sequential models. In Model 1, we predicted state mindfulness at the

Table 7

end of the workday solely from within-person metacognitive beliefs at

the start of the workday, which explains whether endorsing these

12
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 8 (179) = 2.61, p = .010.

Models of metacognitive beliefs predicting mindful attention (Study 3). Turning to mindful metacognition, within-person metacognitive
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 beliefs was a significant predictor in Model 1, γ = 0.30 (95% CI = 0.17,
0.44), t(1,253) = 4.49, p < .001 (see Table 9). It further remained a
Intercept 4.07*** 0.05 0.04 0.46 significant in Model 2, γ = 0.30 (95% CI = 0.13, 0.42), t
(0.13) (0.56) (0.56) (0.58)
(1,253) = 4.49, p < .001, when between-person metacognitive beliefs
Week –0.07 –0.06 0.01 0.01
(0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06)
was added as a predictor, which was also significant, γ = 0.91 (95%
Time 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 CI = 0.77, 1.06), t(180) = 12.15, p < .001. As with mindful attention,
(0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) both within-person and between-person levels of metacognitive beliefs
Metacognitive 0.30*** 0.27*** 0.12 0.11 were simultaneously significant as predictors. In Model 3, mental fa-
Beliefs(w)
tigue predicted less mindful metacognition, γ = –0.05 (95%
(0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07)
Metacognitive 0.77*** 0.77*** 0.69*** CI = –0.10, 0.00), t(1,252) = –2.02, p = .044. In support of
Beliefs(b) Proposition 2, between-person metacognitive beliefs remained a sig-
(0.10) (0.11) (0.11) nificant predictor of mindful metacognition, γ = 0.91 (95% CI = 0.76,
Mental Fatigue –0.15*** –0.15***
1.06), t(180) = 12.11, p < .001, as did within-person levels of me-
(0.03) (0.03)
Resource Beliefs 0.22**
tacognitive beliefs, γ = 0.25 (95% CI = 0.11, 0.39), t(1,252) = 3.53,
(0.08) p < .001. This provides evidence that both momentary fluctuations
Dependent Variable Mindful Mindful Mindful Mindful and more stable endorsement of beliefs can exert distinct influences on
Attention Attention Attention Attention mindfulness. And, in support of its incremental predictive validity,
Random Effects
metacognitive beliefs at within-person and between-person levels both
Level 2 Variance 1.17 1.01 1.01 0.99
Metacognitive Beliefs 0.58 0.57 0.51 0.51 remained significant with the inclusion of resource beliefs in Model 4,
Slope which was itself marginally significant, γ = 0.10 (95% CI = –0.02,
Residual Variance 0.95 0.95 0.94 0.94 0.22), t(179) = 1.69, p = .093.
Model Information To better quantify these effects, a model that included between-
AIC 4546.97 4506.26 4481.03 4479.52
Log Likelihood –2264.48 –2263.13 –2229.52 –2227.76
person and within-person metacognitive beliefs in the morning had a
Marginal R2GLMM 0.01 0.15 0.16 0.18 R2GLMM in predicting evening mindfulness of 0.15 for mindful attention
Conditional R2GLMM 0.62 0.62 0.63 0.63 and 0.27 for mindful attention—which is more than twice as much
variance explained by the model in Study 1 data that included within-
Note. N = 185 participants, n̄ = 1438 responses. Coefficients are standardized. person and between-person levels of all the situational features (i.e.,
+ p < .10.
conscientiousness goals, skill-challenge balance, technology use, hin-
* p < .05.
drance stressors, social interactions), which were measured at the same
** p < .01.
*** p < .001. time as mindfulness, and had a marginal R2GLMM of 0.06 for mindful
attention and 0.13 for mindful metacognition. We therefore find strong
evidence that metacognitive beliefs are a crucial antecedent of mind-
beliefs at a particularly high or low level that day influences later fulness, and that, in support of our theoretical framework, they more
mindfulness levels. In Model 2, we added in between-person levels of consistently and powerfully predict mindfulness than overall cognitive
metacognitive beliefs, which explains whether a participant’s general resource level and contemporaneously felt mental fatigue.
tendency to hold metacognitive beliefs predicts their mindfulness be- Situational features. We then tested whether situational features in-
yond the daily fluctuations. In Model 3, we added in mental fatigue dicating on-task attentional pull predicted mindfulness (see Table 10).
experienced at the start of the workday, to directly test Proposition 2 Conscientiousness goals at the within-person level did not predict
that metacognitive beliefs will positively predict mindfulness above and mindful attention, γ = 0.03 (95% CI = –0.05, 0.11), t(1,360) = 1.17,
beyond its negative relation with mental fatigue, leading to a com- p > .250, but did predict mindful metacognition, γ = 0.10 (95%
pensatory effect. In Model 4, we add in the resource beliefs measure to CI = 0.02, 0.17), t(1,360) = 2.44, p = .015. At the between-person
examine whether our scale has incremental predictive validity beyond level, conscientiousness goals predicted both mindful attention,
an established measure that serves only as a rough proxy for the me- γ = 0.14 (95% CI = 0.05, 0.22), t(182) = 3.18, p = .002, and mindful
tacognitive beliefs specific to mindfulness. metacognition, γ = 0.30 (95% CI = 0.14, 0.47), t(182) = 3.58,
As shown in Table 8, within-person metacognitive beliefs sig- p < .001. Skill-challenge balance at the within-person level predicted
nificantly predicted mindful attention in Model 1, γ = 0.30 (95% both mindful attention, γ = 0.09 (95% CI = 0.04, 0.14), t
CI = 0.15, 0.44), t(1,253) = 4.09, p < .001. It further remained a (1,360) = 3.38, p = .002, and mindful metacognition, γ = 0.26 (95%
significant predictor in Model 2, γ = 0.27 (95% CI = 0.13, 0.42), t CI = 0.17, 0.35), t(1,360) = 5.77, p < .001. And at the between-
(1,253) = 3.76, p < .001, when between-person metacognitive beliefs person level, it also predicted mindful attention, γ = 0.54 (95%
was added as a predictor, which itself was significant, γ = 0.77 (95% CI = 0.36, 0.71), t(182) = 6.11, p < .001, and mindful metacognition
CI = 0.56, 0.98), t(180) = 7.32, p < .001. This finding that within- γ = 0.58 (95% CI = 0.45, 0.72), t(182) = 8.56, p < .001. Whereas
person and between-person levels of metacognitive beliefs are si- positive social interactions at the within-person level predicted neither
multaneously significant suggests that momentary fluctuations and greater mindful attention, γ = 0.01 (95% CI = –0.04, 0.06), t
more stable endorsement of metacognitive beliefs may offer distinct (1,360) = 0.34, p > .250, nor mindful metacognition, γ = 0.03 (95%
influences on mindfulness. In Model 3, mental fatigue predicted less CI = –0.02, 0.07), t(1,360) = 1.23, p = .221, at the between-person
mindful attention, γ = –0.15 (95% CI = –0.20, –0.10), t level, it predicted both mindful attention, γ = 0.17 (95% CI = 0.02,
(1,252) = –5.82, p < .001, as expected. In support of Proposition 2, 0.32), t(182) = 2.31, p = .022, and mindful metacognition, γ = 0.20
between-person metacognitive beliefs remained a significant predictor (95% CI = 0.08, 0.32), t(182) = 3.37, p = .001. Turning to off-task
of mindful attention, γ = 0.77 (95% CI = 0.56, 0.98), t(180) = 7.33, attentional demands, we find that, at the within-person level, hindrance
p < .001, whereas within-person levels of metacognitive beliefs be- stressors was a strong negative predictor of mindful attention,
came marginal, γ = 0.12 (95% CI = –0.03, 0.26), t(1,252) = 1.60, γ = –0.15 (95% CI = –0.23, –0.08), t(1,360) = –3.99, p < .001, and
p = .110. In support of its incremental predictive validity, in Model 4, mindful metacognition, γ = –0.09 (95% CI = –0.16, –0.02), t
metacognitive beliefs remained significant with the inclusion of re- (1,360) = –2.62, p = .009. It was also a strong negative predictor at the
source beliefs, which was significant, γ = 0.22 (95% CI = 0.05, 0.38), t between-person level for mindful attention, γ = –0.64 (95%

13
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 9
Models of metacognitive beliefs predicting mindful metacognition (Study 3).
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Intercept 4.74*** –0.04 –0.02 0.19

(0.12) (0.41) (0.41) (0.42)
Week 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.01
(0.06) (0.05) (0.06) (0.06)
Time 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
(0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)
Metacognitive Beliefs(w) 0.30*** 0.30*** 0.25*** 0.25***
(0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07)
Metacognitive Beliefs(b) 0.91*** 0.91*** 0.87***
(0.08) (0.08) (0.08)
Mental Fatigue –0.05* –0.05*
(0.02) (0.02)
Resource Beliefs 0.10+
(0.06)
Dependent Variable Mindful Metacognition Mindful Metacognition Mindful Metacognition Mindful Metacognition
Random Effects
Level 2 Variance 0.96 0.69 0.69 0.68
Metacognitive Beliefs Slope 0.51 0.51 0.51 0.50
Residual Variance 0.93 0.93 0.92 0.92
Model Information
AIC 4405.05 4302.34 4306.16 4309.17
Log Likelihood –2193.53 –2141.17 –2142.08 –2142.58
Marginal R2GLMM 0.02 0.27 0.27 0.27
Conditional R2GLMM 0.55 0.55 0.56 0.56

Note. N = 185 participants, n̄ = 1438 responses. Coefficients are standardized. + p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.

CI = –0.77, –0.51), t(182) = –9.63, p < .001, as well as mindful

metacognition, γ = –0.44 (95% CI = –0.56, –0.32), t(182) = –7.28,
p < .001.

5.4.2. Interactions predicting mindfulness components

In Proposition 4, we suggested that situational features can make
cognitive resource level or the beliefs that motivate resource allocation
more or less facilitative of mindfulness. Exploring this proposition in
Study 1, we found two such cases: in how cognitive resources and re-
source beliefs interacted with skill-challenge balance to predict mindful
attention. Failing to replicate Study 1, we found no such interaction
with cognitive resources in this study, γ = 0.03 (95% CI = –0.06,
0.12), t(1,359) = 0.58, p > .250, In contrast, the interaction with
resource beliefs did replicate, γ = –0.07 (95% CI = –0.13, –0.01), t
(1,360) = –2.22, p = .026. This interaction is plotted in Fig. 3—and the
region of significance analysis reveals that skill-challenge balance be- Fig. 3. Cross-level interactions with skill-challenge balance (Study 3).
comes a positive predictor of mindful attention when resource beliefs
fall below 0.69 (b = 0.09, SE = 0.05, p = .050), a range that includes

Table 10
Situational predictors of state mindfulness (Study 3).
Mindful attention Mindful metacognition

Model predictor γ 95% CI t test γ 95% CI t test

Conscientiousness Goals(w) 0.03 –0.05, 0.11 0.77 0.10 0.02, 0.17 2.44*
Conscientiousness Goals(b) 0.23 0.03, 0.44 2.25* 0.30 0.14, 0.47 3.58***
Hindrance Stressors(w) –0.15 –0.23, –0.08 –3.99*** –0.09 –0.16, –0.02 –2.62**
Hindrance Stressors(b) –0.64 –0.77, –0.51 –9.63*** –0.44 –0.56, –0.32 –7.28***
Skill-Challenge Balance(w) 0.14 0.05, 0.22 3.18** 0.26 0.17, 0.35 5.77***
Skill-Challenge Balance(b) 0.54 0.36, 0.71 6.11*** 0.58 0.45, 0.72 8.56***
Positive Social Interactions(w) 0.01 –0.04, 0.06 0.34 0.03 –0.02, 0.07 1.23
Positive Social Interactions(b) 0.17 0.02, 0.32 2.31* 0.20 0.08, 0.32 3.37**

Note: N = 185 participants, n̄ = 1438 responses. Dotted lines separate estimates from each of the distinct models that appear in this table. All predictors variables are
within-person.
+ p < .10.
* p < .05.
** p < .01.
*** p < .001.

14
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
approximately 78% of our sample (Bauer & Curran, 2005).
5.5. Preliminary discussion
This study addresses key limitations of prior studies by temporally
separating measures of metacognitive beliefs and mental fatigue, si-
tuational antecedents, and mindfulness—and also by assessing cogni-
tive resources. In it, we found strong support for Propositions 1, 2, and
3 and mixed support for Proposition 4. Metacognitive beliefs were a
stronger and more consistent predictor of mindfulness than cognitive
resources and compensated for mental fatigue felt contemporaneously.
We also found that situations, with their on-task attentional pull and
off-task attentional demands, could function as supplements or en-
cumbrances to the self-regulatory processes that produce mindfulness.
6. General discussion
Despite the increasing prevalence of mindfulness in organizational
research, we have yet to seriously consider its antecedents: how and
why people become more or less mindful from one situation to the next.
The purpose of the present research was to offer theoretical and em-
pirical contributions to that end, which have clear implications for
practice as well as future research.
6.1. Contributions of theoretical framework
At the theoretical level, we introduced a novel framework that in-
tegrates insights from research on mindfulness as metacognitive prac-
tice (Kudesia, 2019) and self-regulation (Beal et al., 2005; Kanfer &
Ackerman, 1989; Lian et al., 2017). Whereas much of the prior work
has focused on mindfulness as related to a capacity for self-regulation
(Isbel & Mahar, 2015; Ruocco & Direkoglu, 2013), very little work has
examined its motivational aspect. One exception found that people who
lack mindfulness training require a financial incentive to allocate the
same amount of cognitive resources to a task as people who receive
mindfulness training are willing to do for free (Jensen, Vangkilde,
Frokjaer, & Hasselbalch, 2012). The theoretical framework introduced
here provides a way to systematically think about this motivational
aspect in terms of three motivational forces: the metacognitive beliefs
unique to mindfulness that drive resources into self-regulation, the
feelings of mental fatigue that draw resources away from self-regula-
tion, and the on-task attentional pull and off-task attentional demand
appraisals of situations that serve to supplement or encumber self-
regulation. By integrating insights on metacognitive practice and self-
regulation in this manner, the former research develops a richer un-
derstanding of how mental fatigue and situational appraisals can shape
the emergence of mindfulness, whereas the latter gains a more nuanced
understanding of how metacognition can put self-regulatory processes
to unique uses. This theoretical framework, in turn, extends our un-
derstanding of mindfulness in line with recent personality psychology
models of how people and their situations are connected (e.g., Fleeson
& Jayawickreme, 2015; Mischel, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2008) as well as
human factors and ergonomic approaches, which have more fully
considered the demands that situations pose on attention (see Wickens
& McCarley, 2008). These new connections elicited by the theoretical
framework introduced here provide a resource to further develop the
literature.
6.2. Contributions of empirical studies
In terms of the empirical contribution, we have resolved some
puzzles and leave others yet to be resolved. In Proposition 1, we sug-
gested that cognitive resources and metacognitive beliefs would both
relate positively with states of mindfulness. We found limited support
for cognitive resources as operationalized in Study 1 and Study 3, with
the former being significant only at the p < .05 level and the latter not
15
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
significant. It is therefore possible either that capacity may not be a
particularly strong predictor of mindfulness or that Raven’s advanced
progressive matrices may not be the best way of operationalizing cog-
nitive resources. Because Raven’s matrices most strongly relate to
working memory and the executive function that updates it (e.g.,
Carpenter et al., 1990; Friedman et al., 2006), different measures that
assess executive functions related to shifting or inhibiting may better
predict mindfulness. In contrast, we found strong and consistent sup-
port that metacognitive beliefs positively relate to mindfulness. In
Study 2, metacognitive beliefs reported prior to a work shift sig-
nificantly predicted state mindfulness levels in nurses 12 hours later,
after their shift ended. In Study 3, metacognitive beliefs reported in the
morning before their workday began predicted state mindfulness in the
evening after their workday ended.
Supporting Proposition 2, metacognitive beliefs also remained a
significant predictor of state mindfulness beyond the negative effects of
mental fatigue in Study 3. Indeed, metacognitive beliefs alone predicted
more than twice as much variance in mindfulness as a model in Study 1
that included all the situational antecedents: conscientiousness goals,
skill-challenge balance, technology use, hindrance stressors, social in-
teractions. This finding supports a key contention of metacognitive
practice, that metacognitive beliefs are an important driver of state
mindfulness. In so doing, it helps resolve the paradoxical relation be-
tween mindfulness and mental fatigue: these metacognitive beliefs can
motivate people to continuously allocate their resources toward self-
regulation, despite contemporaneous feelings of mental fatigue that
serve to draw resources away from self-regulation. Across Study 2 and
Study 3, approximately 60% of the variability in metacognitive beliefs
remains stable across situations, whereas only 45% of variability in
mental fatigue remains stable across situations. The relative stability of
metacognitive beliefs provides a motivational basis for people to
overcome the limiting demotivational effect of mental fatigue.
In Proposition 3, we suggested that situational appraisals of on-task
attentional pull and off-task attentional demands would, respectively,
either supplement or encumber the self-regulatory processes that pro-
duce mindfulness. We found strong support for this proposition, in-
cluding a pattern of results that differed for some of the respective si-
tuational antecedents. The first on-task attentional pull factor, skill-
challenge balance, was a rather consistent predictor of mindfulness at
both within- and between-person levels across the three studies. How-
ever, the effect sizes were modest. This finding sheds light on the fre-
quently debated relation between mindfulness and flow (e.g., Aherne,
Moran, & Lonsdale, 2011; Kee & John Wang, 2008; Sheldon, Prentice, &
Halusic, 2015). Namely, the situational feature that is most responsible
for flow is also conductive to mindfulness but still leaves much of the
emergence of mindfulness unexplained. The second on-task attention
pull factor, conscientiousness goals, in contrast, showed no discernable
pattern across the three studies: it was only significant at within-person
level in Study 1, not at all significant in Study 2, and showed mixed
significance in Study 3. As such, we can conclude that mindfulness
demonstrates sufficient divergent validity from the similar constructs of
flow and conscientiousness, but we are no closer to explaining the
correlation between conscientiousness and mindfulness. The final on-
task attentional pull factor, positive social interactions, significantly
predicted mindfulness across all three studies at the between-person
level, but not at the within-person level. As will be discussed subse-
quently, this finding suggests that some of the potential antecedents of
mindfulness may need to be systematic to be effective, rather than in-
cidental.
In terms of the off-task attentional demands, hindrance stressors
showed a rather consistent negative relation with mindfulness at both
within- and between-person levels and had the largest average effect
size across all the predictors. As will be discussed subsequently, this
finding also has practical implications about how to design work en-
vironments to facilitate mindfulness. The final off-task attentional de-
mand, technology use, was only assessed in Study 1. In line with our
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
suggestion, both sides of the debate about mindfulness and technology
may be correct: the immediate consequences of technology use on
mindfulness more depend on how we engage with it than the tech-
nology itself. But the between-person results suggest a further nuance:
not all people are equally prone to use technology passively. Whereas
those who tend to be less mindful also tend toward using technology
passively, perhaps people who are typically more mindful can with-
stand the temptation to mindlessly browse social media or may not find
doing so particularly tempting in the first place. These results in par-
ticular merit further replication and extension.
Finally, in Proposition 4, we suggested an interactive effect between
situations and cognitive resources and motivational beliefs. We found
no such interactions with off-task attentional demands and only one
such effect with skill-challenge balance, the most quintessential ex-
ample of an on-task attentional demand. While finding an interactive
effect between cognitive resources and skill-challenge balance in pre-
dicting mindful attention in Study 1, this interaction did not replicate in
Study 3. As noted previously, there is value in attempting to replicate
this interactive effect using a different operationalization of cognitive
resources. We did, however, replicate an interaction between resource
beliefs and skill-challenge balance in predicting mindful attention. As
the interaction plots show, people who believe that sustained attention
can feel energizing do not require their situations to be high in atten-
tional pull (skill-challenge balance) to maintain mindful attention. This
interaction reveals the value in considering motivation in conjunction
with characteristics of situations both in general (Lian et al., 2017), as
well as specifically in clarifying the emergence of psychological states
like mindfulness. Taken in sum, we find rather limited support for
Proposition 4, particularly in relation to off-task attentional demands.
This finding is not entirely surprising, as prior work has typically failed
to find such “buffering” interactive effects of personal resources on si-
tuational demands (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017).
Finally, although we found differences between the components of
mindful attention and mindful metacognition, we could not detect any
theoretically meaningful pattern underlying these differences. Thus, we
found no support for the uniformity hypothesis, instead supporting the
differential hypothesis that mindfulness components function differ-
ently from each other (Baas, Nevicka, & Ten Velden, 2014). Given that
most organizational research to date has only assessed mindful atten-
tion, even when conceptualizing mindfulness as both present-moment
attention and detached monitoring of thoughts and feelings (Sutcliffe
et al., 2016), the differential hypothesis raises some concerning issues
for the literature. First, measures of mindful attention alone may in-
adequately cover the conceptual space of mindfulness (see Grossman,
2011). Second, even results consistently found with this measure may
not characterize mindfulness more broadly. As such, at this stage, our
study can only suggest value in assessing both components of mind-
fulness and placing greater confidence in results that hold for both
components.
6.3. Practical contributions
The present research offers several contributions for practitioners.
Most generally, it exemplifies the idea that mindfulness entails a
“coming together” of people and situations (Kudesia, 2019, p. 415). The
related implication—that the self-regulatory processes underlying
mindfulness become easier to enact in certain situations—is utilized, for
instance, in mindfulness meditation training. This is why mindfulness is
typically first trained on neutral stimuli, like the breath, and cultivated
in supportive situations before being put toward emotionally-charged
stimuli and demanding situations (Jha, Stanley, Kiyonaga, Wong, &
Gelfand, 2010; Wells, 2002). To the extent that practitioners consider
the role of situations, and differences in the within- and between-person
effects of situations, they can better cultivate mindfulness in organi-
zations. For instance, as critical treatments of mindfulness have cau-
tioned us (e.g., Møllgaard, 2008; Purser, Forbes, & Burke, 2016),
16
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
mindfulness training can offload the burden of maintaining wellbeing
onto the employee, rather than the management. Our finding that or-
ganizational characteristics over which managers have specific control,
such as hindrances, can substantially erode mindfulness rightfully
places the onus back onto managers, rather than employees. Mind-
fulness requires a conducive work environment to blossom.
Similarly, our findings can help inform practitioners who seek to
implement mindfulness as an “on-the-spot” workplace intervention
(Hafenbrack, 2017). For instance, we find that positive social interac-
tions enhance mindfulness at the between-person level, but not at the
within-person level. This finding suggests that managers cannot en-
hance an employee’s mindfulness levels by a single positive interaction.
They must instead ensure that the employee consistently experiences
positive social interactions. The work climate matters more for mind-
fulness than specific interactions. In contrast, a single task assignment
that balances the employee’s skills with challenges will enhance their
mindfulness. Finally, given the expansion of technology in everyday
life, and our finding that passive technology use (like scrolling through
Facebook) was the strongest feature eroding mindful attention in Study
1, practitioners can and should consider how to better manage tech-
nology use. With the growth of mindfulness apps (e.g., Headspace,
Calm, 10% Happier), it becomes important to clarify whether such
specialized forms of active technology use can enhance mindfulness,
and whether they may exert any spillover effects that reduce the ad-
verse effects of passive technology use (cf. Sliwinski, Katsikitis, & Jones,
2017).
6.4. Future research directions
Our hope is that the theoretical framework introduced here can help
motivate further research on the antecedents of mindfulness and how
mindfulness emerges from the coming together of people and their si-
tuations. Such work could follow any one of several promising avenues.
Scholars could explore additional operationalizations of self-control
capacity. For instance, although assessments of general mental ability,
working memory, and executive functions overlap, they can still be
meaningfully distinguished (Friedman et al., 2006). Future work could,
as noted previously, assess self-control capacity using executive func-
tions like shifting or inhibiting. Any such work should pair objective
assessments of self-control capacity with an experience sampling de-
sign, as in the current design. Doing so integrates the precision of la-
boratory assessment with the naturalistic realism of everyday situa-
tions, to better shed light on the emergence of mindfulness (cf. Kane
et al., 2007). A further refinement of this approach could include the
use of a field-experiment, in which self-control capacity is assessed
before mindfulness training and the role of self-control capacity in
generating states of mindfulness is then compared across a condition of
participants who received training and those who did not. Such an
approach would more seriously tackle the transfer problem: that we still
understand very little about how the activities that occur during
mindfulness training transfer to impact everyday work activities. Si-
milarly addressing the transfer problem, future research could unpack
how metacognitive beliefs are developed, particularly by focusing on
two key pathways suggested in metacognitive practice: mindfulness
training and interpersonal contact with individuals who actively role
model these metacognitive beliefs in their actions (Kudesia, 2019).
Such work could clarify, for instance, whether mindfulness training
done in groups might better facilitate mindfulness than solitary prac-
tice, because it not only develops metacognitive beliefs through the
meditation instructions, but also affords interpersonal contact with
people attempting to embody the beliefs. Such work would have clear
practical implications for mindfulness training.
Another avenue for future work could take the overarching prin-
ciple of Proposition 3—that situations can supplement or encumber the
self-regulation processes upon which mindfulness relies—as a helpful
guide in identifying additional situational features to study. In the
C.S. Reina and R.S. Kudesia
short-term, mindfulness research would benefit greatly from studies
that replicate and extend the present results by examining additional
features of situations that represent on-task attentional pull and off-task
attentional demands. Such work could also shift to objective assess-
ments of these features, rather than relying on self-report as we did in
the present research. As an example, we encouraged further work on
how technology use—including both passive use of social media and
specialized use of mindfulness apps—might impact mindfulness.
Technology use is one situational feature in particular that could
profitably rely on objective metrics (see Ellis, 2019). There are, how-
ever, diminishing marginal returns to continually expanding the list of
situational features appraised as on-task and off-task. The purpose of
our theoretical framework is to enrich thinking about the ways that
situations could influence mindfulness, as mindfulness scholarship has
not considered that situations can supplement or encumber self-reg-
ulation. There is a clear danger that such frameworks can be used in a
post-hoc manner to motivate incremental work (see Cortina, 2016).
Thus, once it becomes evident that the various features appraised as
on-task attentional pull and off-task attentional demands exert their
theorized influence on state mindfulness, it may be useful to shift the
research focus. Such a shift could entail assessing on-task attentional
pull and off-task attentional demands more directly (e.g., Kanfer,
Ackerman, Murtha, Dugdale, & Nelson, 1994; Wickens & McCarley,
2008) and focusing on other aspects of metacognitive practice. For
instance, work could contribute to important psychological debate on
how, precisely, features of situations become appraised as meaningful
(Rauthmann et al., 2015). Perhaps mindfulness entails not only unique
metacognitive beliefs, but unique metacognitive strategies as well. Such
strategies could influence the meaningfulness of situational appraisals
of on-task attentional pull and off-task attentional demands. As an ex-
ample, people who receive mindfulness training are often encouraged
to treat situations with low attentional pull, like snacking, driving, and
washing dishes, as an opportunity to practice their mindful attention.
This strategy therefore changes the meaning of a low attentional pull
appraisal. Qualitative research that analyzes the instructional content
of mindfulness trainings or observes the situated activities of people
attempting to be mindful could particularly help elaborate the relevant
metacognitive strategies. We suggest that such metacognitive strategies
entail a crucial type of tacit knowledge possessed by mindfulness ex-
perts, which allow them to better enact their metacognitive beliefs in
everyday situations. To the extent that future work elaborates these
strategies more explicitly, this tacit knowledge can be fed back into
mindfulness trainings, thereby improving them. All of the above re-
search avenues would entail valuable additions to the promising but
underdeveloped literature on the antecedents of mindfulness.
7. Conclusion
Mindfulness is often assumed to be something that people bring
with them into situations, some stable psychological property that is
inherent to them. The present research helps nuance this assumption. If
we instead see mindfulness as arising from the coming together of
people and their situations, we can better conceptualize mindfulness
and design organizational situations that enhance it. As such, we sug-
gest a change to Kabat-Zinn’s well-known phrase “wherever you go,
there you are,” a change that acknowledges how mindfulness arises in
our everyday situations. Perhaps the phrase can be that “wherever you
go, there you become.”
Acknowledgments
We would like to dedicate this publication to Deb Moody who
provided boundless inspiration and will always be remembered. We
also thank Deb Zimmerman and Alison Montpetit for their mindful
partnership and Simine Vazire for her developmental feedback on an
earlier draft of this article. The corresponding author appreciates
17
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
financial support from the Future Resilient Systems project at the
Singapore-ETH Centre, which is funded by the National Research
Foundation of Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and
Technological Enterprise program (FI 370074011).
Appendix. Metacognitive beliefs in mindfulness scale (MBM)
Attentional sufficiency
1. I can stay attentive for extended periods without needing to take
breaks.
2. I believe my ability to pay attention will remain strong over time.
3. I can remain focused on my work for long periods of time.
4. I feel confident that I can remain focused on my work for quite some
time.
Virtue of monitoring
5. It is valuable for me to monitor my thoughts and feelings as I work.
6. I’m motivated to notice how my mind works through problems that
may occur.
7. It’s important that I step back and notice any strong feelings that
may arise.
8. I’m motivated to stay alert to changes in my thoughts and feelings as
I work.
Map-terrain differentiation
9. I believe there are many possible explanations for why people act
the way they do.
10. I’m very willing to put my assumptions on hold if unexpected
events occur.
11. I’m open to different ways of interpreting events than my own.
12. I’m willing to revisit my beliefs even if I feel strongly about them.
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