Clarifying the relationship between trait mindfulness and objective performance

The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between trait mindfulness and four indicators of individual objective performance (accuracy, reaction time, variability in reaction times, and detection of unexpected stimuli), and the moderating role of task complexity. Moreover, we want to find out whether this relationship is maintained or variance is added when we consider intelligence and two personality variables (conscientiousness and neuroticism) that are also associated with performance. To achieve our goal, we conducted a study in a laboratory setting and employed software (E-prime 2.0) to recode the objective indicators of performance on a Stroop task (Stroop 1935). The present study results show that self-reported rating of dispositional mindfulness measured with MAAS (Brown & Ryan, 2003) are not congruent with objective performance indicators (accuracy, reaction time, variability in reaction times), except for the detection of unexpected stimuli. We also confirmed the important role of intelligence in performance outcomes and we also found that task complexity was not playing a moderator role in the relationship between mindfulness and objective performance.