Mindfulness training reduces the preference for proenvironmental outcomes

Abstract

Theoretical accounts posit that mindfulness promotes proenvironmental behavior. While this claim is supported by correlational findings, past intervention studies provided no evidence that enhancing mindfulness increases self-report measures of proenvironmental behavior. Here, we tested whether a 31-day mindfulness intervention strengthens preferences for proenvironmental outcomes with decision tasks involving real conflict between participants’ selfish interests and beneficial consequences for the environment. To unravel the psychological mechanisms underlying the impact of mindfulness on proenvironmental behavior, we assessed the impact of mindfulness training on prosociality and future orientation. Contrary to our hypotheses, the mindfulness intervention reduced instead of increased preferences for proenvironmental and prosocial outcomes, whereas no effects were observed on future orientation. Baseline preferences for proenvironmental and prosocial outcomes (and the intervention effects on them) were correlated, providing empirical evidence for a link between proenvironmental behavior and prosociality. Together, the current data suggest that the relationship between mindfulness and proenvironmental behavior as well as prosociality may be more complicated than assumed in the literature.