Cognitive Control as a Function of Trait Mindfulness

Mindfulness is associated with many positive health and lifestyle outcomes, but its effects on domain-general cognitive control have produced mixed results. Recent studies suggest that mindfulness might lead to better inhibitory control because high mindful individuals often have an advantage over low mindful individuals on conflict resolution tasks. Here we show that mindfulness is a better predictor of post-conflict recovery processes than conflict resolution, and this may help to explain discrepancies in the literature. Participants performed a task-switching paradigm in which they encountered occasional conflict trials amongst mostly non-conflict trials. Trait mindfulness (MAAS) scores strongly predicted recovery from conflict as measured on non-conflict trials following the conflict trial but did not predict performance on the conflict trials themselves. These findings are interpreted as evidence that mindfulness is associated with domain-general post-conflict recovery processes rather than inhibitory control.