“There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.” – Phil Knight
We experience conflicting information all the time. These occur frequently in human interactions where words and body language may be presenting completely opposite messages. They occur shopping where a products quality and price may be affecting our decision to buy in opposite directions. They occur while driving a car where another driver’s turn signal may be on but the car shows no sign of slowing down to make the turn. They occur while surfing the web where interesting information and enticing ads coexist on the same page each calling for your attention.

 

These kinds of conflicts are presented to us many many times each day. It is up to our cognitive, thought, processes to resolve the conflict so that we can make an appropriate decision or take reasoned action. Mindfulness practices have been shown to help improve our cognitive processing of information (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/25/alter-your-thinking-with-meditation-for-mental-health/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/mindfulness-improves-mental-health-via-two-factors/). Perhaps mindfulness training might improve our ability to resolve these ubiquitous daily information conflicts.

 

In today’s Research News article “Time course of conflict processing modulated by brief meditation training.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4490222/

Fan and colleagues employed the Stroop task to assess mental conflict. https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1099257073431551/?type=3&theater

In this task participants are asked to name the ink color of a word when the word itself names a different color. Typically it takes a lot longer to name the color when the word and color interfere than when the word and ink color are the same. They found that a brief (5-hr) mindfulness training significantly reduced the participants’ susceptibility to the interference, showing faster responding and less difference between the interference trials and the non-interference trials.

 

Fan and colleagues also measure brain responses during the task and found that neural responses mirrored the behavioral responses in that the mindfulness training produced quicker brain response and less interference. Other brain activity suggested that the training produced a more efficient allocation of attentional resources.

 

Mindfulness training improves attention (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/31/treating-adult-adhd-with-mindfulness/) and appears to make the brain more efficient in processing information (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/03/make-the-brain-more-efficient-with-meditation/). These effects of mindfulness alone or together could account for the improvement in the ability to deal with conflicting information.

 

These results suggest, but do not demonstrate, that mindfulness training may help the practitioner to better deal with the myriad of everyday information conflicts that are encountered. But, more research is needed to see if these laboratory findings translate to real world information conflicts.

 

So, practice mindfulness and be better at resolving mental conflicts.

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies