A sense of fellowship: Mindfulness improves experienced interpersonal benefits and prosociality in a military aviation unit
Meland, Anders; Hoebeke, Elena; Pensgaard, Anne Marte; Fonne, Vivianne; Wagstaff, Anthony Sverre; Gaden Jensen, Christian
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2986917Utgivelsesdato
2021Metadata
Vis full innførselSamlinger
- Artikler / Articles [2092]
- Publikasjoner fra Cristin [1080]
Originalversjon
The International Journal of Aerospace Psychology. 2021, 31(2), Side 162-179. 10.1080/24721840.2020.1865818Sammendrag
Objective: Explore how personnel in a military aviation unit experienced personal as well as interpersonal aspects concerning their participation in a group-based four-month MBT programme.
Background: mindfulness-based training (MBT) have been used as a personal stress management tool in stressful working environments, including military aviation. There is little knowledge about the interpersonal mechanisms involved when engaging in MBT.
Method: Adhering to Grounded Theory (GT), we conducted post-intervention interviews with 42 programme participants. We selected 30 interviews with evidence of interpersonal effects for in-depth analyses to build a theoretical model of the pathways through which interpersonal effects might develop.
Results: The majority of the interviewees (30/42 = 71%) experienced significant interpersonal effects from MBT. The in-depth analyses revealed an increase in the common theme “Sense of Fellowship” (SOF). SOF comprised three primary change processes: “Attention to others,” “Self-observation” and “Reflection.” In addition, five behavioral changes emerged: “Direct communication,” “Increased patience,” “Decreased anger expression,” “Calmness,” and “Acceptance.” Finally, four contextual factors appeared to have particular importance for the development of SOF: “Plenary sessions,” “Sharing experiences,” “Doing something new together,” and “Sitting in silence.”
Conclusion: These findings indicate that MBT has prosocial effects in a military aviation setting, and the constructed model contributes theoretically by suggesting how these psychosocial effects may arise and develop.
Beskrivelse
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.