Dr Amy J Hawkes from Griffith’s School of Applied Psychology and
co-researcher Carla Neale were inspired to conduct the research due to the
limited evidence supporting mindfulness in the workplace.
Most
of the 496 team workers surveyed noted that they interacted with
their teams daily or a couple of times a week. The respondents were of various
ages from various industries including retail, admin, hospitality, health,
education. In collating the responses, the researchers found
that being higher in mindfulness was significantly and positively
related to team-member exchange, and that this relationship
was mediated by emotion regulation.
‘There’s
already a lot of evidence that suggests if you have a mindful approach towards
life then you generally have better relationship satisfaction with your
partners or with your friends,’ Dr Hawkes said. ‘However, our study looked
at this in relation to relationships with colleagues at work, and that’s the
leap that hasn’t been documented very much previously.’
The study
examined ‘dispositional mindfulness’, which is a person’s trait or natural
level of mindfulness. Practising mindfulness in meditation or tasks could
potentially boost your baseline mindfulness. Survey respondents rated
their own level of dispositional mindfulness, which indicated the level at
which they were naturally aware or unaware of what was happening
around them in a nonjudgmental way.
‘Our
study looked at whether people’s dispositional mindfulness had an impact on how
they rated their co-worker relationships as cooperative and supportive,’
Dr Hawkes said. ‘People
who are more mindful reported higher quality relationships with
their colleagues, and that that seems to be explained by how they’re
processing and responding to what is happening.
‘This
ability to process emotions, how they’re feeling in that moment, and then
respond appropriately and not snap, is something is that is starting to appear
strongly in mindfulness literature as being an explanation for why mindfulness
might help these relationship processes.
Dr
Hawkes said the next step for this research could be to observe workers within
an organisation then run some mindfulness interventions to track
improvements to co-worker relationships.
Study: Hawkes A J, and
Neale C M. ‘Mindfulness beyond wellbeing: Emotion regulation and team?member
exchange in the workplace.’ Australian
Journal of Psychology. First published: 6 June 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12255
