Abstract
Mindfulness has been found to improve psychological well-being. It has also been incorporated in many clinical interventions as an effective strategy against various psychological disorders. However, how mindfulness works is still unclear. Mindfulness emphasizes observing the present moments with fully awareness and non-reactivity, so it may change the way people remember things, especially for events containing strong emotional stimuli. It is possible that mindfulness reduces the bias towards negative memories, which is typically shown in depressed people. The current study investigated emotional memory as a potential pathway through which mindfulness training leads to improvement in psychological well-being as well as a decrease in psychological symptoms. Fifty-nine undergraduates were recruited for the study (69.5% female). Half of them were randomly selected to receive brief mindfulness training by listening to an audio guided mindfulness meditation tape, and the other half received music relaxation treatment. All of the participants viewed a set of pictures with positive, negative and neutral valences, and were given a recognition task. Participants who received mindfulness training had higher false alarm rates for positively valenced images, and higher false alarms for positive images were related to greater psychological well-being. The current study provided evidence that the effectiveness of mindfulness training could be explained by changes in emotional memory.