Between-subjects test of hypothesized relationships. Although my arguments focus on dynamic, within-person associations among antecedents and outcomes of state mindfulness, I conducted a pilot study—a between-subjects field study—to establish that on a given day, employees who perceive their work as more meaningful also experience increased state mindfulness and are less likely to behave counterproductively that same day.
Sample and procedure. Participants were 144 employed individuals in the U.S. who responded to an online survey in exchange for payment of $0.50. Participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (http://mturk.com/), which is argued to be a reliable data source (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). Within this sample, 45% of participants self- identified as female and 71% as Caucasian. On average, participants were 34.59 (SD = 10.64) years of age. Participants were asked to self-report experiences of meaningful work, state mindfulness, and CWB on the day that the online survey was completed. Trait mindfulness was measured and controlled for in all analyses.
Measures.
Work meaningfulness. Participants responded to a six-item meaningfulness scale from May et al. (2004). This scale included three items adapted from Spreitzer’s (1995) meaning dimension of psychological empowerment and three items from May (2003). Instructions in the current study were adapted so that participants’ responses reflected work experiences that
personally meaningful to me,” and “I felt that the work I did was valuable.” Participants indicated their extent of agreement with each item on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Higher scores reflected greater perceived meaningfulness. See Appendix A for scale items and instructions.
State Mindfulness. The Mindfulness Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS, Brown & Ryan, 2003) assessed state mindfulness. Instructions were adapted so that participants’ responses reflected work experiences that occurred on the same day the survey was completed. Example items are, “I found it difficult to stay focused on what was happening in the present,” and “I did jobs or tasks automatically, without being aware of what I was doing.” Participants indicated their extent of agreement with each item on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). All items were reverse coded so that higher scores reflected greater state mindfulness. See Appendix A for scale items and instructions.
CWB. A 19-item measure (Bennett & Robinson, 2000) assessed employee deviance behavior. Employee deviance behavior is a form of CWB and the items in this measure map onto dimensions of CWB outlined by Spector and colleagues (2006). These dimensions include abuse toward others, production deviance, and sabotage. Instructions were adapted to refer to
experiences that occurred at work on that same day. Example items are, “said something hurtful to someone,” and “intentionally worked slower than I could have worked.” Participants indicated their extent of agreement with each item on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Higher scores reflected greater deviance behavior. See Appendix A for scale items and
instructions.
Trait Mindfulness. The Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS, Lau et al., 2006) assessed employee trait mindfulness. Participants reported the frequency with which they experienced 13
different items on a seven-point scale. Example items are, “I am curious to see what my mind is up to from moment to moment,” and “I am more concerned with being open to my experiences than controlling or changing them.” Higher scores reflected greater trait mindfulness. See Appendix A for scale items and instructions.
Pilot Study: Results
Intercorrelations, descriptive statistics, and reliabilities are reported in Table 1. Trait mindfulness was entered as a control variable in all main effect and indirect effect models.
Tests of direct effect hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 predicted that meaningful work
perceptions would be positively associated with state mindfulness. As Table 2 shows, there was a significant and positive direct effect of meaningful work on employee mindfulness (B = 0.19, p < .01). Hypothesis 2 predicted that state mindfulness would be negatively associated with
employee CWB. As Tables 3 shows, there was a significant and negative direct effect of mindfulness on employee CWB (B = -0.32, p < .01). These results provide some initial support for hypotheses 1 and 2.
Additional analyses. Although perceived meaningfulness and CWB were not
significantly related (B = -0.09, p > .05), the above support for hypotheses 1 and 2 warranted a follow-up test of the expected indirect effect of perceived meaningfulness on CWB through mindfulness. As Table 5 shows, the indirect effect through mindfulness was significant and negative (coefficient = -0.06, p < .05), providing initial evidence that perceived meaningfulness is indirectly and negatively related to employee CWB through increased levels of state
Pilot Study: Discussion
The goal of this initial pilot study was to examine and provide preliminary support for the proposed relationships among perceived meaningfulness, state mindfulness, and CWB. Indeed, findings from this cross-sectional between-subjects design pilot suggest that state mindfulness underlies a negative indirect effect of perceived meaningfulness and employee CWB on a given workday. Despite this preliminary support for relationships of interest, these findings are limited due to the cross-sectional self-report design. In addition to concerns regarding common method variance associated with this type of design (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003), these findings can’t speak to whether these variables fluctuate within-person or whether the observed relationships are dynamic. These questions and limitations are addressed in the subsequent two studies. Finally, trait mindfulness (as measured by the TMS) and state mindfulness (as measured by the MAAS) were not significantly correlated. This lack of
relationship is not surprising given operationalization differences between the TMS and MAAS. Relative to items in the TMS, the items in the MAAS are more closely aligned with the
conceptual definition of mindfulness in this work, and thus the MAAS is adapted for both state and trait level assessment of mindfulness in the subsequent studies.
CHAPTER 5: STUDY 1