mindfulness as a therapy approach for treating victims of human trafficking

Evaluate the Evidence Drawing on your expertise in psychology research methods, evaluate the strength of the evidence provided in the scholarly article you selected for reading this week. While all studies have strengths and weaknesses, research design (if used correctly) has the potential to improve the validity of our causal inferences. Make note of any limitations of the study design that influence the internal and external validity of your selected study. Based on your analysis, state in your own words the conclusions that can actually be drawn, given the methodological approach. Then identify what you view as the most important direction for future research that would improve the direction of the field. If you need a refresher on how to evaluate the quality of research, consider using these checklists (select the appropriate stud Meta-analysisDownload Meta-analysis Randomized Controlled TrialDownload Randomized Controlled Trial Intervention ResearchDownload Intervention Research Observational ResearchDownload Observational Research Nonrandomized ResearchDownload Nonrandomized Research Other Francie Rottini (She/Her)/100 words The article I evaluated provided an overview of several research studies that analyzes the relationship between mindfulness practices and romantic relationship functioning (Karremans, Schellkens, & Kappen, 2017).

Some of the extraneous variables include the length of time individuals had been together or married, and the number of prior relationships. This would obviously impact the quality and persistence of the relationship possibly impacting the approach to problemsolving and communication. For instance, mindfulness during my first marriage may not have likely made a significant impact given my age and inexperience with relationships, while in my current marriage, the practice would likely be more impactful. Another example would be the perceived satisfaction with non-romantic relationships. For instance, if an individual has a negative outlook towards all relationships or are they primarily unsatisfied with their romantic relationships only? One limitation that seems to be prominent in many of the studies was the lack of experimental elements to help support the causal implications of mindfulness in romantic relationships. Many of the studies relied heavily on self-report measures for both relationship satisfaction and mindfulness itself which can post a construct validity concern. Based on my analysis, I think the primary variable being measured (and positively associated with mindfulness and relationships) is likely the ability of an individual (and couple) to manage and withstand stress. The mindfulness practice itself provides a type of stress buffer to insulate the couple from too much of a negative impact in high-stress situations. It seems likely that the technique itself actually improves the individual’s (and their partner’s) subjective well-being, but helping each of them to manage their levels of stress more effectively.

One area for future study that I think would be interesting to further explore, is the role that gratitude and forgiveness can play when actively participating in positive psychology interventions (e.g., mindfulness). Perhaps the practice of mindfulness itself is not directly impacting the couple’s satisfaction, but the byproduct of increasing gratitude and forgiveness, instead. Article: Karremans, J.C., Schellekens, M. P. J. & Kappen, G. (2017). Bridging the sciences of mindfulness and romantic relationships: A theoretical model and research agenda. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21(1), 29 – 49. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868315615450 Karalee Beall /100 words I read the article on Mindfulness in parenting and co-parenting for this discussion. The study utilized a program named MTurk, a crowdsourcing website run by Amazon that allows businesses to hire remote workers to perform tasks that computers cannot. In the enrollment phase of the study, families were chosen under the criteria of being US residents and having a 95% task approval rate for previous MTurk tasks (Parent et al., 2016). This is already a red flag because it does not include a generalized population or allow for the researchers to ensure a wide demographic. Without more specific control measures on the demographic of participants, the data will not be able to be generalized.

A major component of possible error in this study is that the questions are primarily emotionally measured. Because of this, it is easy for participants to sway answers to what they feel is correct rather than truthful. Furthermore, when given options such as never, somewhat, or all the time – you are asking the participants to make generalizations themselves, which can lead to inaccuracies. Due to this, the same questions should be asked more than once to verify if the participants’ answers are consistent throughout the questionnaire, therefore confirming the data is reliable. The study had further limitations, the first being that because of the way the participants were chosen, only one participant answered the questions. This means that the study only gathers one perspective on the parenting and/or co-parenting dynamics. This raises questions about the validity of the statements and answers as they cannot be cross-referenced with a secondary source. Second, the sample demographics were incredibly narrow and did not include much variety. The sample population was primarily white, educated, and middle or upper-income class, which means the study lacks generalizability (Parent et al., 2016).

The data gathered from the study clearly included one main demographic and does not account for a much more diverse population. Furthermore, the study only assessed one form of mindfulness, which excludes any other facets utilized by participants, again skewing the data by excluding alternative forms. Lastly, the researchers did not take into account if participants had received any previous training on mindfulness, which could indicate how their results would vary. Based on the lack of generalizability, missing information on participants’ understanding of mindfulness, and one-sided perspectives – the study cannot make large conclusions with the data. Instead, it can be concluded that programs that target mindful parenting correlate with improved parent-child relationships, co-parenting relationships, and parenting practices for this specific population – white, educated, middle/upper-income families. Moving forward with future research on this topic, important attention must be paid to choosing participants to ensure generalizability. Furthermore, both parents should be required to participate in order to ensure bias is minimized and answers are accurate. It may even be beneficial to have families complete training on mindfulness and follow them with a long-term study on how the training affected their relationships. Parent, J., McKee, L. G., Anton, M., Gonzalez, M., Jones, D. J., & Forehand, R. (2016). Mindfulness in parenting and Coparenting. Mindfulness, 7(2), 504–513. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-015-0485-

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