What if your mediation clients had an accurate assessment of their abilities, were able to acknowledge their mistakes, had a lower self-focus (with focus on self often taking a backseat), did not have over-active self-talk, kept their place in the world in perspective, and appreciated others? The items I just listed are some indicators of hypo-egoic states. A mediation between people in hypo-egoic states might be fairly easy to facilitate, don't you think?
"Hypo-Egoic States: Personal and Interpersonal Consequences of Attentuated Self-Attention, Image Concerns, and Ego-Involvement" was the title of one of the symposia I attended at this year's Association for Psychological Science annual conference. This one was presented by Drs. Mark Leary, June Price Tangney, Jennifer Crocker, and Kirk Warren Brown.
The four presentations in the symposium were on humility, self-esteem, mindfulness, and a model of hypo-egoic processes. The theory and research behind each topic were intellectually intriguing, and the possible practical applications
First, affirming one's important values (e.g., by writing about them for 10 minutes) can reduce defensiveness and stress, probably by transcending self. (Click for some of my blog posts about affirming values.) Although many benefits of values affirmation are being found through research, the mechanisms of the effects are not yet fully known. Dr. Crocker guesses that it may have to do with improving mood and self-image. And, in affirming your highest values, you are actually transcending instead of affirming your focus on self, and thus shifting your concern to something greater than yourself.
The other way suggested in this symposium to promote hyp-egoic states is mindfulness (being fully present to experiences, preceiving what is, seeing afresh, etc). In fact, the presentation about mindfulness was titled "Mindfulness: An Inoculation Against Negative Consequences of Ego Involvement."
Mindulness is not the same as selflessness. Mindfulness is adaptive not because it eliminates concerns for self, but instead because it contextualizes self.
Dr. Brown presented research that indicated that, in romantic relationships, greater mindfulness correlates with lower anxiety about conflict, less hostility and verbal aggression, and greater love and commitment.
Dr. Brown also discussed research that showed that people high in mindfulness are less susceptible to threat responses caused by others' evaluations, are less negatively affected by mortality salience (thinking about their own death), and are less affected by social exclusion.
In case you are wondering, Brown uses the MAAS in his research to assess people's mindfulness.
Much more was discussed in this program, but I have presented a very brief overview of just some of the 80-minute symposium. As I have said above, two practices described in the symposium—values affimation and mindfulness—have been presented in my blogs before but this presentation at APS underscored their utility and value. Anecdotally, I can say that these practices are helpful for parties to mediations and for conflict professionals themselves. A hypo-egoic mediation is likely a smoother, more fluid mediation.
Note: In my model of mediation, the purpose phase by necessity gets parties to focus on values important to them. The step is critical to the mediation and this kind of research gives a strong clue as to why.
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