Social mindfulness: Skill and will to navigate the social world.

Abstract

Although one may not always see it, social life often involves choices that make people act in ways that are mindful of others or not. We adopt an interdependence theoretical approach to the novel concept of social mindfulness, which we conceptualize in terms of other-regarding choices involving both skill (to see it, e.g., theory of mind, perspective taking) and will (to do it, e.g., empathic concern, prosocial orientation) to act mindfully toward another person's control over outcomes. We operationalized social mindfulness in a new social decision-making paradigm that focuses on leaving or limiting choice options for others that we tested across 7 studies. Studies 1a through 1c showed that people with other-oriented mindsets left interdependent others more choice than people with self-oriented and/or unspecified mindsets. Studies 2a and 2b revealed that people developed more favorable judgments of a socially mindful than of a socially unmindful person. Study 3 revealed that unknown others with trustworthy (vs. untrustworthy) faces were met with more social mindfulness. Study 4 revealed that social mindfulness could be traced in personality by being positively related to Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness (HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised) as well as to Empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and a prosocial value orientation (SVO). Together, these studies contribute to explaining how social mindfulness can help people to navigate the social world by aiming to maximize other people's control over their situational outcomes.

Toward understanding social cues and signals in human–robot interaction: effects of robot gaze and proxemic behavior

“…For example, giving the “right of way” when a path-crossing event occurs, as was the case in the passive proxemic behavior condition, may have led participants to perceive the robot as attending to them and their behavior. In HHIs, attending to and responding in a way that takes into consideration the interests of another has been termed “social mindfulness,” and appears to facilitate positive perceptions of an entity (Van Doesum et al, 2013). …”

“…For example, if a robot should be regarded as having more positive emotional states, it should be programmed to appear as a socially mindful agent (see Tsui et al, 2010; Van Doesum et al, 2013). If the robot should be regarded as more active or more aroused, possibly conveying a sense of urgency, it should execute behaviors that appear more assertive and without as much, if any, regard for those implicit social rules.…”

Memento Mori: The development and validation of the Death Reflection Scale

“…Although interventions designed to increase death reflection have not yet been developed, recent work on mindfulness training (Jamieson & Tuckey, ) could be adapted to the context of death‐related education and training. Specifically, its explicit focus on concrete processing of the present (Brown & Ryan, ) and the newly expanded incorporation of social connectedness (Van Doesum, Van Lange, & Van Lange, ) fit nicely with some of the defining features of death reflection. Therefore, organizations can consider incorporating mindfulness training into their death‐related education and training programs.…”

Health-related quality of life and life satisfaction in colorectal cancer survivors: trajectories of adjustment

“…Dispositional optimism was measured by the Revised Life Orientation Test [22], a 10-item scale consisting of six target items and four filler items. Items are scored on a five point responses scale where participants are asked to indicate their extent of agreement from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree).…”