Mindfulness, mindful consumption, and life satisfaction An experiment with higher education students

• Published in: Journal of applied research in higher education Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 456 - 474
• Main Authors: Gupta, Sharad, Verma, Harsh V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bingley Emerald Group Publishing Limited 16.06.2020
• Subjects: College Students; Consciousness; Consumption; Control Groups; Educational Environment; Emotions; Experiments; Food; Higher education; Literature reviews; Meditation; Mindfulness; Society; University students
• ISSN: 2050-7003; 1758-1184
• DOI: 10.1108/JARHE-11-2018-0235

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of mindfulness meditation sessions on students of higher education in terms of their mindfulness, mindful consumption behavior and life satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachParticipants of research were higher education students. The research included two studies. The first (screener) study endorsed that mindfulness was higher in students with higher mindfulness meditation frequency. The second study used difference-in-differences experimental design using a treatment and a control group. These groups participated in pre and post-treatment surveys. The treatment was given as guided short mindfulness meditation sessions as suggested by mindfulness guru – Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn. The treatment group received these sessions at the end of regular subject classes for two months.FindingsThe experiment revealed that mindfulness, mindful consumption and life satisfaction change significantly in the treatment group after treatment as compared to the control group.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations of the study included sample size and attrition. In total, 149 students participated in the screener study. In total, 94 students were given pre-treatment survey as per research design and 80 participated in post-treatment survey.Practical implicationsThis experiment demonstrated that important traits and behavior like life satisfaction and mindful consumption behavior of higher education students can be improved significantly. The effectiveness of guided short mindfulness sessions, conducted in the classroom environment, was also confirmed.Social implicationsThe inclusion of mindfulness in the regular curriculum by policy makers would benefit students, faculty members and overall quality of learning environment.Originality/valueThough previous researches have separately investigated relationships of mindfulness with life satisfaction, there is a lack of research to show association of mindfulness, mindful consumption and life satisfaction.