A new study found that individuals who are conscious about their thoughts and emotions are less affected by positive feedback from others.
Humans are social animals and everything in the environment affects them in some way or the other. While many people claim to be unbothered about what people think and say about them, only a few remain unaffected.
Being mindful can actually make a person partially immune to what people say about them - good or bad. In fact, a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto Scarborough found that individuals who are mindful about their emotions and thoughts are less affected by positive feedback they get from others.
"These findings suggest that mindful individuals may be less affected by immediate rewards and fits well with the idea that mindful individuals are typically less impulsive" said UTSC PhD candidate Rimma Teper.
The trait mindfulness not only involves being aware of one's thoughts and emotions but also invokes self-acceptance. People high on this trait are capable of letting go of their feelings rather than getting carried away.
Teper and her team used electroencephalography (EEG) to study and record the brain activity of participants while they completed a reaction time task on a computer. The authors observed the brain activity of the participants while they received performance feedback that was rewarding, neutral or negative in nature. Not only were mindful individuals less responsive to rewarding feedback compared to others, they also showed less difference in their neural response to neutral versus rewarding feedback.
"Individuals who are problem gamblers for instance show more brain reactivity to immediate rewards, because they are typically more impulsive," said Teper. "Many studies, including our own past work, have shown that people who meditate, and mindful individuals exhibit improved self-control. If mindful individuals are also less affected by immediate rewards, as our study suggests, this may help explain why."
