IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0279544.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mindful self-focus–an interaction affecting Theory of Mind?

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Wundrack
  • Jule Specht

Abstract

Is thinking about oneself helpful or harmful for understanding other people? The answer might depend on how a person thinks about themself. Mindfulness is one prominent construct that seems to affect the quality and content of a person’s thoughts about themselves in the world. Thus, we hypothesize that the relationship between self-focus and Theory of Mind (ToM) is moderated by mindfulness. We evaluate our hypothesis with a large cross-sectional dataset (N = 543) of native and non-native German and English speakers using OLS and MM-estimated robust multiple regression analysis. We found a small but robust self-focus × mindfulness interaction effect on ToM so that there was a significant positive relation between self-focus and ToM for more mindful individuals and no significant relation for less mindful individuals. The findings support our hypothesis that mindfulness moderates the relationship between self-focus and ToM performance. We discuss the limitations and differences between the present study and previous findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Wundrack & Jule Specht, 2023. "Mindful self-focus–an interaction affecting Theory of Mind?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(2), pages 1-15, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0279544
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279544
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0279544
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0279544&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0279544?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van Buuren, Stef & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, Karin, 2011. "mice: Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i03).
    2. Wen-Bin Chiou & Chun-Chia Lee, 2013. "Enactment of one-to-many communication may induce self-focused attention that leads to diminished perspective taking: The case of Facebook," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(3), pages 372-380, May.
    3. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:372-380 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Joseph Henrich & Steve J. Heine & Ara Norenzayan, 2010. "The Weirdest People in the World?," RatSWD Working Papers 139, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    5. Joseph Henrich & Steven J. Heine & Ara Norenzayan, 2010. "Most people are not WEIRD," Nature, Nature, vol. 466(7302), pages 29-29, July.
    6. Lee Cronbach, 1951. "Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 16(3), pages 297-334, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John A. List, 2024. "Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling," Nature, Nature, vol. 626(7999), pages 491-499, February.
    2. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2020. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts: A comparison with five categories of field expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    3. Michael Muthukrishna & Joseph Henrich & Wataru Toyokawa & Takeshi Hamamura & Tatsuya Kameda & Steven J Heine, 2018. "Overconfidence is universal? Elicitation of Genuine Overconfidence (EGO) procedure reveals systematic differences across domain, task knowledge, and incentives in four populations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-30, August.
    4. Renaud Foucart & Jonathan H. W. Tan, 2024. "A test of loyalty," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 109-137, August.
    5. Cromwell, Johnathan R. & Harvey, Jean-François, 2025. "A problem half-solved is a problem well-stated: Increasing the rate of innovation through team problem discovery," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(3).
    6. Manpreet Blessin & Sophie Lehmann & Angela M. Kunzler & Rolf van Dick & Klaus Lieb, 2022. "Resilience Interventions Conducted in Western and Eastern Countries—A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-25, June.
    7. Sebastian Kurten & David Winant & Kathleen Beullens, 2021. "Mothers Matter: Using Regression Tree Algorithms to Predict Adolescents’ Sharing of Drunk References on Social Media," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-16, October.
    8. Serwaah, Priscilla & Shneor, Rotem & Nyarko, Samuel Anokye & Nielsen, Kristian Roed, 2024. "Explaining gender differences in crowdfunding contribution intentions," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Winter, Scott R. & Rice, Stephen & Rains, Taylor & Milner, Mattie & Mehta, Rian, 2017. "A longitudinal study on the alteration of consumer perceptions and the use of pilot medication," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 100-106.
    10. Jonathan H.W. Tan & Zhao Zichen & Daniel John Zizzo, 2023. "Scientific Inference from Field and Laboratory Economic Experiments: Empirical Evidence," Discussion Papers Series 663, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    11. Esperanza Vera-Toscano & Fernando Garrido-Fernández & José Gómez-Limón & José Cañadas-Reche, 2013. "Are Theories About Social Capital Empirically Supported? Evidence from the Farming Sector," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(3), pages 1331-1359, December.
    12. Bence Csaba Farkas & Valérian Chambon & Pierre O. Jacquet, 2022. "Do perceived control and time orientation mediate the effect of early life adversity on reproductive behaviour and health status? Insights from the European Value Study and the European Social Survey," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, December.
    13. Valdemoros-Erro, María Jesús & Álvarez-Arce, José Luis & Sanjurjo-San-Martín, Elena, 2025. "The belief that monetary exchanges are mutually beneficial: Are economics students different? Evidence from Guatemala," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    14. Bühler, Dorothee & Sharma, Rasadhika & Stein, Wiebke, 2020. "Occupational Attainment and Earnings in Southeast Asia: The Role of Non-cognitive Skills," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    15. Tatiana Chopova & Naomi Ellemers & Elena Sinelnikova, 2024. "Morality matters: social psychological perspectives on how and why CSR activities and communications affect stakeholders’ support - experimental design evidence for the mediating role of perceived org," International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.
    16. Pierre O. Jacquet & Farid Pazhoohi & Charles Findling & Hugo Mell & Coralie Chevallier & Nicolas Baumard, 2021. "Predictive modeling of religiosity, prosociality, and moralizing in 295,000 individuals from European and non-European populations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-12, December.
    17. Camille Cornand & Paul Hubert, 2020. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-02894262, HAL.
    18. Rohan Kapitány & Nicole Nelson & Emily R R Burdett & Thalia R Goldstein, 2020. "The child’s pantheon: Children’s hierarchical belief structure in real and non-real figures," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-25, June.
    19. Guyt, Jonne Y. & Datta, Hannes & Boegershausen, Johannes, 2024. "Unlocking the Potential of Web Data for Retailing Research," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 130-147.
    20. Yoon, Junghyun & Lee, Hee Yong & Dinwoodie, John, 2015. "Competitiveness of container terminal operating companies in South Korea and the industry–university–government network," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1-14.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0279544. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.