Mindfulness at work (Glomb, Duffy et al, 2012) - Human Resources

138THERESA M. GLOMB ET AL.As noted in the preceding text, when individuals become more aware of theirbodily states, they are more able to regulate their levels of physiologicalactivation and responses to negative thoughts and emotions. Consequently,unhealthy stress hormone production (i.e., cortisol) is reduced, allowingworking memory to function more effectively, which suggests that mindfulnessmay be especially important for effective performance in theworkplace when multiple demands or stress-inducing conditions prevail.Improved Accuracy in Affective ForecastingAffective forecasting refers to an individual’s ability to accurately predicttheir emotional responses to future events (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003). It hasbeen well established that people are generally poor at anticipating futureemotions; they are unable to accurately predict how they will feel followingemotionally charged events (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley,1998). They tend to predict they will be happier than they actually are afterpositive events and to predict that they will be unhappier than they actuallyare following negative events. Mindfulness may lead to improvements inaffective forecasting by reducing the impact bias (i.e., overestimating theemotional impact of a future event), because mindfulness allows people toconsider emotions and emotional experiences as separate from the self, andbecause it reduces automaticity of thought. In one study of a sample of 188young adults who forecasted their emotions for the weeks following the2008 presidential election, Emanuel, Updegraff, Kalmbach, and Ciesla(2010) found that trait mindfulness was associated with more moderateaffective forecasts and decreased impact bias.Errors in affective forecasting are important in the workplace becausethey introduce bias into decision-making processes when individualsoverweight their own or others’ reactions to future occurrences. Moreaccurate affective forecasting is expected not only to improve employeeperformance via improved decision making, but is also expected to improvewell-being because of greater alignment between expectations and reality,which eliminates the disappointment, negative emotions, and frustrationthat follow from unmet expectations.KEY WORK-RELATED BENEFITS OF MINDFULNESSOur central purpose in this manuscript was to link mindfulness andmindfulness-based processes to employees’ performance and well-being atwork. In examining the cognitive, emotional, and neurobiological processes