Science vs. Spin:
Title: Women Benefit More Than Men in Response to College-based Meditation Training
Spin: Only women benefit from mindfulness; mindfulness only works for women
Spin: Mindfulness is ineffective for men
Science: We do not think that the findings mean that mindfulness is ineffective for men. There has just been too much data –both anecdotal and empirical- suggesting that many men benefit from mindfulness, so the results of our study need to be considered within the larger context of findings. While it’s true that in our study, men’s average negative affect score did not improve, there were still plenty of men that did improve. There were probably also women that didn’t improve. This is the problem with relying too much on means, which are not good at reflecting individual differences.
Take home message: The take-home message from this study is that we may need to pay more attention to issues of diversity and individual differences that could impact how different people respond to mindfulness interventions. Gender – or really individual differences in emotion regulation strategies, capacities or goals- seems to be an important factor based on this study, but it is just one of many such factors that may need to be considered.
Fight fake news: Always read the original article which can be found here