Maybe, at least this is suggested by a pre-registered field experiment by Ash et al. (2023), where people practicing mindfulness meditation for 15 minutes a day for 2 weeks compared to an active control (listening to relaxing music) showed a reduced tendency to avoid painful information that may trigger worry or regret, with a likely mechanism for this effect being improved emotion regulation.
If this were the case, this would be great news for our decision making, as the ability to impartially evaluate all relevant information is one of the keys to good decision making.
It’s true that the observed effect was rather small and barely distinguishable from noise and we may be concerned about its reproducibility, but as a Trekkie and a big fan of Mr. Spock, I like the idea that there might be a method that could make us a little more like this cool half-Vulcan and half-human 😉🖖
Related notes
- Can a simple coin flip help you decide and avoid overanalyzing?
- Does your personality interfere with your self-awareness?
- Why do psychologists disagree—even when they use the same data and methods?
- What actually makes us happier?
- Self-Leadership: A New Superpower?
📄 Read the original post with full outputs on my blog.