Emerging research is beginning to highlight the influence of mindfulness on cognitive performance. However, researchers have yet to examine how mindfulness impacts cognition after people experience adversity or challenge within a task. The present study aims to build upon the existing theoretical knowledge base by investigating how a low‐dose mindfulness induction influences engagement, mood, performance, and persistence on a challenging cognitive task. It was hypothesized that compared to a wait‐list control group, mindful individuals would experience greater engagement, more adaptive mood, and enhanced performance on the difficult cognitive task. Results indicated that although the mindfulness and wait‐list control groups did not differ in how strenuous (difficult, stressful) they found the task, the mindfulness group reported significantly greater levels of engagement. Moreover, the mindfulness group reported higher levels of low‐arousal positive mood (e.g., calmness, tranquility) compared to the control group following the task. After exposure to the adversity component of the task, mindful individuals also responded with increased performance and persistence compared to the control group on a follow‐up task. Practical applications of these findings are discussed.

As the number of seniors around the world continues to proliferate, research devoted to enhancing our understanding of the specific needs of these individuals is warranted. The present research doc...

When engaging in a task, individuals may prioritize the task’s results (i.e., the outcome), or they may focus on the task in and of itself (i.e., the process). Previous conceptualizations of outcome and process orientations have focused on population- and context-specific motives rather than people’s general proclivity toward these orientations across diverse tasks. Using a context-generalized outcome and process measure, we examined whether older adults (M_age = 72.8) and younger adults (M_age = 18.0) varied in their outcome and process orientations, and explored how these differences were related to temporal focus. The results indicated that, compared to their younger counterparts, older adults were more process oriented, and focused more on the present. Meanwhile, younger adults were more outcome oriented and focused more on the past and the future compared to older adults. Mediation analyses further revealed that older adults were more present focused due to their heightened process orientation, while younger adults were more past and future focused due to their outcome orientation. The implications of these findings in applied settings such as the workplace, health promotion, and business are discussed.