Yuval Hadash

Decentering and Related Constructs A Critical Review and Metacognitive Processes Model

The capacity to shift experiential perspective—from within one’s subjective experience onto that experience—is fundamental to being human. Scholars have long theorized that this metacognitive capacity—which we refer to as decentering—may play an important role in mental health. To help illuminate this mental phenomenon and its links to mental health, we critically examine decentering-related constructs and their respective literatures (e.g., self-distanced perspective, cognitive distancing, cognitive defusion). First, we introduce a novel metacognitive processes model of decentering. Specifically, we propose that, to varying degrees, decentering-related constructs reflect a common mental phenomenon subserved by three interrelated metacognitive processes: meta-awareness, disidentification from internal experience, and reduced reactivity to thought content. Second, we examine extant research linking decentering-related constructs and their underlying metacognitive processes to mental health. We conclude by proposing future directions for research that transcends decentering-related constructs in an effort to advance the field’s understanding of this facet of human experience and its role in (mal)adaptation.

Examining the Decoupling Model of Equanimity in Mindfulness Training: An Intensive Experience Sampling Study

Although Buddhist thought and contemporary psychological science have theorized that equanimity may be a critical outcome and salutary mechanism of action of mindfulness, empirical evidence is limited. Eighty-two meditation-naive adults (52% female; Mage = 25.05 years, SD = 3.26 years) from the general community participated in a 3-week, six-session mindfulness training intervention. Prior to and then over the course of the intervention, in the contexts of daily living and mindfulness meditation, we collected 52 digital experience samples (2–3/day). Mixed-linear models permitted analysis of data much like 82 single-subject multiple-baseline experimental design data sets. The practice and cultivation of mindfulness states were associated with elevations in manifestations of equanimity (i.e., elevated willingness and decreased hedonic-based avoidance), which were robust to spontaneous subjective stress as well as experimentally evoked idiographic negative self-referential thoughts. Mindfulness may therefore function to decouple desire (wanting and not wanting) from the hedonic tone of experience (pleasant and unpleasant).

Meta-Awareness of Dysregulated Emotional Attention

We explore the human capacity for and the function(s) of meta-awareness for biased attentional processing of emotional information (MAB) subserving mental (ill) health. We do so by integrating probe-caught sampling methods, signal detection theory, and multilevel modeling of cognitive-experimental laboratory data among daily smokers (N = 75) known to exhibit biased attentional processing of reward-related (drug) cues in addiction. We found (a) evidence of the capacity for and individual differences in MAB; (b) that momentary MAB was most likely observed in the event of the most extreme micro-expressions of biased attentional processing; and (c) that momentary micro-expressions of biased attention without MAB were more likely followed by attentional dysregulation, whereas momentary micro-expressions of biased attention with MAB were more likely followed by more balanced attentional expression or greater attentional control. We discuss the implications for basic and clinical science of meta-awareness.