Mindfulness, Behaviour Change and Engagement in

Public Policy IIAn Evaluation

February 2016

Rachel Lilley, Mark Whitehead, Rachel Howell, Rhys Jones, and Jessica Pykett

Contents

Acknowledgements..............................................................................................3

Executive Summary..............................................................................................5

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………8

2. Mindfulness and Behaviour Change: Exploring the

Connections…………………….11

3. Mindfulness, Behaviour Change and Engagement in Public Policy 8-Week

programme…………………………………………………………………………………………

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4. Evaluation Results………………………………………………………………………………

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Acknowledgements

We would like to formally acknowledge the help and support of the Welsh Government, without whom this initiative would not have been possible. In particular we would like to thank Diana Reynolds. Diana’s dedicated support was a crucial part of this programme. We would also like to thank those working at the Welsh Government who helped organise and/or participated in this course, particularly Emma Small, and all those who patiently agreed to complete the evaluative aspects of the programme. Finally, we recognise the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number: ES/L003082/1) and the Welsh Government.

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“I think that this speaks really strongly to something which our Permanent Secretary talks about which is the need for evidenced based decision-

making, the need to be actually more rational and objective in our decision-making is a requirement in the civil service code, we are

supposed to be honest, we are supposed to be objective, and actually you can’t do that without understanding the emotions and the biases and all

that as part of the picture, if you haven’t got that feel for the other things you are working in a very narrow zone, which looks terribly logical and

actually isn’t at all rational […] so [this programme is] a means of helping the civil servant to become more objective in the way they are giving

advice and as a means of improving our relations with stakeholders as a way of understanding where we are and where they are […]”

MBCEPP Participant

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Mindfulness, Behaviour Changeand Engagement in Environmental Policy:An Evaluation

Executive Summary

1. Statistically significant increase in understanding of behaviour change. Participants experienced a statistically significant increase (at the 95% confidence level) between the start of the programme and its end in their understanding of key behaviour change insights, including increased knowledge of habit formation, the automatic mind and unconscious bias. This finding is particularly significant given that some of the participants reported that they had a good working knowledge of behaviour change concepts before they began the course.

2. Statistically significant increase in mindfulness traits. When the pre and post-survey results are compared we identified a statistically significant increase in mean scores (at 95% confidence level) for the mindfulness traits of observing, awareness, and non-judging skills. One participant described it as: “Subtle, it is like having more open eyes, more ability to see, or hear, and it is like having slightly more time to work out what the real reaction is”

3. Interviews with participants indicated both an increased ability to be able to pay attention to unconscious bias (through meta awareness), supported by a new openness to and acceptance of unconscious bias. This is encouraging as one of the working hypotheses of the MBCEPP programme was that mindfulness would provide a context for understanding emotion and the role of unconscious biases in shaping behaviour.

4. Mindfulness enables an understanding of behaviour change that is more personally orientated. Participant feedback suggested that it provides practical insight into human behavioural tendencies that more theoretically oriented approaches to behavioural

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learning may be unable to achieve, and which support a more “us” rather than “us and them” approach to developing and working with behaviour change interventions.

5. Whilst more in-depth and longitudinal studies are needed, a training approach like this could contribute to the emergence of new forms of more empowering and potentially effective behaviour changing policies. Participants felt they were more likely following the programme to deliver policies that reflect an understanding of the unconscious and embodied components of other people’s behaviour.

6. The course contributed to specific skill sets and cognitive mechanisms required to be an effective civil servants, such as subjectivity and reactivity. Participants had an improved appreciation of their own subjectivity and therefore their objectivity. They were also able to be more aware of their reactivity, which had a beneficial impact on their interpretation skills.

7. The course positively affected the approach some of the civil servants made to decision-making. Participants were aware that they were able to combine a sense of calmness when approaching a decision with a deeper appreciation of how their emotional reaction to the issue shapes their responses to it. They also reported a sense of being able to allow themself more time and space within which to make a decision. These skills appear to have strategic significance for a civil service that is committed to evidence based policy-making.

8. Participants also reported increased capacity in effectively single tasking rather than ineffectively multi-tasking. They also reported an increased capacity for more creative and open-minded thinking. Enabling them to “think about possibilities you haven’t considered before.”

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When the impacts of the MBCEPP programme are taken together it is interesting to note the cognitive mechanisms that they are supporting. They appear to cut across the so-called attention, constructive and deconstructive dimensions of mindfulness practices1. Attention focussed meditation enables people to develop meta awareness skills whilst building their capacity to guide their attention. Attention and how it is guided or distracted is also a key interest in the world of behavioural insights. Constructive forms of meditation focus on the cultivation of empathy and a greater sense of ‘relational orientation’ within the subject (ibid: 9). Through its particular combination of mindfulness and behaviour change, the MBCEPP appears to have cultivated a greater sense of relational awareness and compassion towards the behavioural tendencies of others. It has been suggested by participants that these constructive elements of the MBCEPP programme have been valuable for both team building and working within the civil service and for the ways in which civil servants relate to external stakeholders. Deconstructuive forms of mindfulness meditation are concerned with ‘practices that use self-inquiry to elicit insights into the nature and dynamics of conscious experience’ (ibid: 9). The combination of mindfulness and behavioural insights in the MBCEPP creates a potential framework for deconstruction, enabling participants to explore the dynamics of perception, bodily sensations, the impacts of thoughts, and various forms of affective phenomenon with the intention of gaining insight. It encourages inquiry into ones internal sense of self and others and thus enabling what Dahl et al describe as a an experimental shift in modes of experiencing (p.9). This experiential shift has enabled participants to gain new insights into the role of unconscious biases, environments, and emotions in shaping their own behaviour, and to begin to develop the cognitive mechanisms which may effectively support the contemporary policy maker in the face of the many and complex challenges they face.

1 Dahl, C.J. Lutz, A. and R.J. Davidson (2015) ‘Reconstructing and deconstructing the self’: cognitive mechanisms in meditation practices’ Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19: 515-523.

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1.Introduction

“I think I was pretty much wrong in what I thought […]I think I was thinking it was more like a meditation [course] where as I actually found it much more powerful than that […] When I first started I thought this will be good because it is going to give me space to think that I don’t normally have and it is going to give me clarity of thought and a chance to make sure and check in with myself to ensure that I am doing the right thing. I did find that I did all that, but what it also did, it had a sort of active element to it that I hadn’t anticipated where you can almost use it like an action learning tool, so even when you are in the moment or working and developing things, the fact that you have got that background in mindfulness I find makes you approach things in a calmer more balanced way and be much more aware of the other people that are involved”

MBCEPP Participant 2

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Some Background

1.1 This report provides a summary account of the evaluation that was conducted in conjunction with the Mindfulness, Behaviour Change and Engagement in Public Policy programme. The Mindfulness, Behaviour Change and Engagement in Public Policy programme (hereafter MBCEPP programme) was developed in order to explore the extent to which practising mindfulness alongside learning about the emerging insights of the behavioural sciences in to the non-rational nature of human behaviour, could provide an effective context to support the emergence of improved working practices within public policy-making. This report reflects upon the second running of the full MBCEPP programme during 2015. Other iterations and adaptions have also been run in different settings. Readers of this report may be interested in the evaluation results of the first MBCEPP programme (which was delivered in 2014), which can be downloaded here:

https://changingbehaviours.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/mindfulness-and-behaviour-change-an-evaluation/

1.2. The 2015 MBCEPP programme was delivered to 23 civil servants working in the Welsh Government across two separate venues, Aberystwyth and Cardiff. While the civil servants who participated in the programme were engaged in a range of policy areas, the majority of participants were involved in the development and delivery of environmental policy and based in the Natural Resources Division (a number had a particular focus on climate change).

1.3. The primary aim of the MBCEPP programme was to test the extent to which mindfulness training could provide a practice-based context within which those who make and deliver public policy could learn about the nature of human behaviour and how it can be transformed. Our research was interested in the extent to which this programme could contribute to changes in working behaviours within the civil service and to the forms of policy that civil servants develop. The premise of the programme was to build participants’ skills in paying attention to bodily sensations, thoughts and experiences and develop their capacity for meta awareness, an awareness of states of awareness (the practice of mindfulness). It also introduced participants to relevant information from the psychological and social sciences on behaviour change (particularly relating to cognitive biases, the nature of rationality, habit formation, and values).

1.4. Although the MBCEPP reflects a unique application of mindfulness in the workplace, the results presented here could be usefully read

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alongside reports on emerging attempts to apply mindfulness in a range of workplace settings. The recently published Mindful Nation (UK) report is a valuable place to learn more about workplace mindfulness initiatives. The Mindful Nation Report can be downloaded here:

http://www.oxfordmindfulness.org/wp-content/uploads/mindful-nation-uk-interim-report-of-the-mindfulness-all-party-parliamentary-group-january-2015.pdf

1.5. Following an initial “taster session”, the MBCEPP programme ran for eight weeks in January and April 2016 and was led by Rachel Lilley (who is a mindfulness trainer and researcher at Aberystwyth University) with some input from Professor Mark Whitehead (also based at Aberystwyth University). The programme was evaluated through three methods:

a. Before and after quantitative survey;

b. In-depth qualitative interviews with participants;

c. A post-programme feedback/feed-forward workshop facilitated by Rachel Lilley and Mark Whitehead.

All of the sessions ran in association with the MBCEPP were convened in Welsh Government buildings in Aberystwyth and Cardiff.

Goals1.6. This report has four primary goals:

To provide an account of the ways in which it is possible to think about the relationship between mindfulness training and behaviour change interventions.

To offer a synopsis of the design and delivery of the MBCEPP programme and the thinking that informed its development.

To offer a summary of the evaluations carried out as part of the programme.

To consider the implications of the MBCEPP for how we think about the role of mindfulness in society and how civil servants approach questions of behaviour change.

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2. Mindfulness and Behaviour Change: Exploring the Connections

Mindfulness: A beginners guide.2.1. The practice of mindfulness has a history that stretches back over two and a half thousand years. Mindfulness was originally a Buddhist practice that was recorded in the Satipatthāna Sutta. Mindfulness is often defined as present-centred non-judgmental awareness.

2.2. While it originates in Buddhist traditions, the last forty years have witnessed the application of mindfulness in a wide range of secular therapeutic and professional contexts. The development of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (which was introduced by Jon Kabat-Zinn as a practice for pain management), and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) (which has been used to alleviate certain mental illnesses) are perhaps the most well known secular applications of mindfulness. In the context of these prominent initiatives, it now appears that mindfulness is entering the social and political mainstream2.

2.3. In the UK there has been a growing interest in the potential application of mindfulness within government. Governmental interest in mindfulness in the UK can be characterized in two main ways. First, mindfulness training is being offered to MPs and Lords in Westminster, and Assembly Members in the National Assembly for Wales. In this context, mindfulness is being deployed as a form of work-based practice designed to support political representatives in their day-to-day lives. Second, the UK government established an All Party Parliamentary Group to study the benefits of bringing mindfulness into public policy3. As we discuss in greater detail below, the provision of mindfulness training to MPs, Lords and Assembly Members, and the establishment of the

2 The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (UK) recently endorsed mindfulness as a treatment for repeat episode depression, and it is now being used within the NHS as a recommended treatment. The .b Mindfulness in Schools Project (pronounced dot be) is promoting the use of mindfulness practices in education and exploring the ways in which it can be incorporated into educational curricula. Mindfulness is also being adopted in the corporate sector, with Google, EBay, Twitter and Facebook among a series of companies who promote the practice among their employees.3 The Mindfulness APPG is supported by the Mindfulness Initiative, a coalition of Oxford, Exeter and Bangor Universities working ‘to promote a better understanding of mindfulness and its potential in a range of public services’. Focusing initially on health, education, and criminal justice, the APPG is exploring the evidence base that could support the wider application of mindfulness techniques.

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mindfulness APPG resonates strongly with our own attempts to deliver mindfulness training within the Welsh Civil Service.

2.4. As a practice of present-centred awareness, mindfulness in its initial stages, involves the training of attention so that we start to change our relationship with our everyday experience, and potentially meet it more fully. Mindfulness practices (including body scans, breathing exercises, and mindful movements, among other things) focus on guiding a dispersed consciousness back to the present, by developing an awareness of the processes of thoughts and feelings. By developing this capacity an individual can become more aware of when they are experiencing a more dispersed consciousness and the nature of rumination on past or future events. They can also become more aware of the reality of multiple task processing and how emotions affect their decisions and behaviours.

2.5. The non-judgmental dimension of mindfulness supports people in becoming more aware of the mental, embodied and environmental forces that shape their experiences, without being reactive to or overwhelmed by them.

2.6. At a practical level, mindfulness involves meditation techniques that can be carried out in group or individual settings. These practices are conducted while sitting down, lying on the floor, or walking.

A brief introduction to behaviour change 2.7. The last decade has witnessed a transformation in the ways in which governments and policy makers understand human decision-making and behaviour. This transformation is often referred to as the Behaviour Change Agenda. At the heart of the Behaviour Change Agenda are two insights:

a. That although changing human behaviour remains a fundamental goal of government policy, public policy makers have found it difficult to change long-term behavioural patterns (particularly in relation to healthy living, sustainable lifestyles, and financial responsibility);

b. That human behaviour is more unconsciously driven and emotionally oriented than traditional theories suggest.

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2.8. Primarily, recent behaviour change policies have been informed by the insights of the behavioural sciences (and in particular behavioural psychology and behavioural economics). These behavioural sciences suggest that while government policies have traditionally focused on the rational dimensions of human decision-making, which are triggered by the provision of information, regulation, or financial incentives (these forms of more deliberate decision-making are often referred to as System 2 thinking), a significant portion of human behaviour is actually shaped by unconscious, seemingly irrational, prompts (these forms of more intuitive decision-making are often referred to as System 1 thinking).

Visual Notes from a behaviour change workshop convened by this report’s authors.

2.9. Emerging behaviour change policies have utilized the insights of the behavioural sciences in order to develop more emotionally literate forms of public policy. Related forms of policy use insights into the emotional aspects of human decision-making in order to make it easier for people make decisions that are in their own and society’s long-term interests. A

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recent study showed that evidence of these forms of behaviour changing policies can be seen in 136 states throughout the world, with 51 governments developing centrally orchestrated policy programmes that strategically integrate the insights of the behavioural sciences into policy development areas.

Map demonstrating the global spread of behaviour change policies (blue denotes centrally orchestrated behaviour change policies, red denotes the use of behaviour change policies somewhere within that nation)

(Source: https://changingbehaviours.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/nudgedesignfinal.pdf).

2.10. The UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team provides the most discussed, and arguably the most developed, example of the application of the behavioural sciences within public policy-making. The UK’s Behavioural Insights Team is applying the insights of the behavioural sciences to policy areas as diverse as charitable giving, energy conservation, taxation, and healthy living.

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Beware of misconceptions!

It is important to be aware of two popular misconceptions concerning the Behaviour Change Agenda. First, there is a tendency to equate behaviour change policies (and in particular the work of prominent groups such as the Behavioural Insights Team) with the popular notion of nudge. Nudges are behaviour change policies ‘that alter[s] people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives’ (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008: 6). A key characteristic of nudges is that they tend to target the behaviour of individuals and to focus on unconscious prompts to action. While nudge is clearly a prominent behaviour change strategy it is also apparent that the governments, NGOs, international organisations, corporations, and consultancies that advocate the insights of the behavioural sciences use a varied pallet of policy tools which adapt and develop behavioural insights in a more different ways – examples of models which attempt to do this in policy contexts would the UCL Behaviour Change Wheel and the ISM Model developed by Andrew Darnton. There are also other behaviourally informed policy tools which are being piloted and developed as more participatory methodologies, these include values-based approaches, co-design, connected conversations, and steering techniques. These alternative approaches recognize the emotional aspect of human decision-making, but attempt to change behaviour through more consciously oriented techniques.

A second misconception that surrounds the Behaviour Change Agenda is the relationship between System 1 and System 2 forms of decision-making. At one level, people often assume that more psychologically oriented theories of decision-making suggest that human behaviour is reducible to more intuitive, System 1 action. At another level, it is also assumed that in targeting System 1 decision-making behaviour change policies are trying to correct the inherent pathologies of

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automatic forms of behaviour. In the first instance it is important to recognize that behaviour change policies often involve developing policies that reflect human tendencies to respond to both rational and more automatic prompts to action. In the second instance, there is widespread acknowledgement that both System 1 and System 2 are vital for effective forms of decision-making and that policies should simply enable people to engage the system that is most effective in a given situation.

Mindfulness and Behaviour Change2.11. For some time there has been an intuitive assumption that mindfulness practices and the insights of the Behaviour Change Agenda could be creatively combined. At the simplest of levels, it has been suggested that the present-centred non-judgmental awareness associated with mindfulness could help people to develop new relationships with forms of emotional, intuitively based System 1 behaviours of which we are often unaware. These ideas have been provisionally tested in studies exploring the role of mindfulness training in supporting pro-environmental behaviours, and in helping to address addictive consumption practices. These studies have been based upon the hypothesis that mindfulness training can support the development of forms of neurological reflexivity through which people can begin to identify and understand the prompts that cause damaging behaviours and potentially establish new behavioural patterns. The study outlined in this report builds on this emerging body of work, but is distinct in at least two respects:

a. It seeks to systematically combine mindfulness training with the insights of the Behaviour Change Agenda. The MBCEPP programme was thus specifically designed to combine mindfulness training practices with an introduction to the principles and theories which underpin behavioural insights and the new behavioural sciences.

b. The course was designed for environmental behaviour change practitioners, within the Welsh Government and beyond. Previous studies have tended to focus on delivering mindfulness training to members of the general public, or the application of standard mindfulness programmes to people with self-identified behavioural problems (such as addictive behaviours).

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Ethics, Efficacy and Empowerment – the 3 E’s

2.12. In order to understand better the potential utility of the MBCEPP it is important to reflect upon some of the concerns that have been raised with the Behaviour Change Agenda. These concerns can be summarised through the three e’s of ethics, empowerment, and efficacy4. Ethical concerns have frequently been raised about the Behaviour Change Agenda. The use of new psychological insights, which often target sub- (or semi-) conscious processes, to change the behaviour of individuals are always going to be open to charges of manipulation. In its Behaviour Change report of 2011, the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee argued that behaviour change interventions needed to be transparent so that they could be subject to appropriate forms of public scrutiny (House of Lords, 2011: pages 108-109)

See: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldsctech/179/179.pdf.

Related ethical concerns have been raised regarding whether the Behaviour Change Agenda reflects an unwarranted intrusion by the state into the private lives of its citizens (House of Lords, 2011: para. 2.19). Connected to these ethical questions have been discussions about the relationship between behaviour change policies and empowerment. Some commentators have argued that in attempting to correct the behavioural errors generated by System 1 thinking, policy-makers are acting in ways that are disempowering to citizens. It is claimed that by subtly changing choice architectures in order to nudge people towards more favourable behaviours, policy-makers are depriving individuals of the chance of understanding and shaping their own behavioural destinies. Related critiques claim that the Behaviour Change Agenda actively undermines people’s autonomy not only because they are often not aware that they are being nudged, but because they lose the opportunity to make warranted mistakes and to subsequently enhance their own behavioural learning and sense of moral independence5. The final group of critiques surrounding the Behaviour Change Agenda questions its efficacy. These critiques suggest that while nudge-type policies are successful in changing simple behaviours over short periods of time, they are a lot less successful at transforming more complex habits over people’s life cycles. 4 See Jones, R. Pykett, J and Whjitehead, M. (2013) Changing Behaviours: On the Rise of the Psychological State (Edward Elgar).5 Furedi, F (2011) On Tolerance: A Defence of Moral Independence (Bloomsbury, Continuum): 135

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Those questioning the efficacy of behaviour changing policies often point out that related policies seek to change the behaviours of individuals but not the individuals and the societies they inhabit.

2.13. In developing the MBCEPP programme we were interested to see the extent to which the combination of mindfulness and behaviour change training could help to address the questions of ethics and efficacy that have been levelled at behavioural policies, and provide the basis for the development of more empowering forms of behaviour change programmes.

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3. The Mindfulness, Behaviour Changeand Engagement in Environmental Policy8-Week Programme

3.1. The table below provides a brief overview of the MBCEPP programme and the ways in which the individual sessions were structured.

Sessions Home practice Mindfulness practice Behaviour Change

Taster session

None Taster:Relax and breatheRaisin

Intro to policy based behaviour change

1 Pre course Check in

Clarify goals and course expectations

2-4 Group session 1

20 min home practice 4 x per week plus reading

Body scan Breathing spaceMindful habit

The role of attention in behaviour change and mindfulness

Group session 2

As above Body scanBreathing spaceMindful habit

Cognitive biases (1)

Group session 3

As above Breath and Body meditationMindful habitBreathing space

Cognitive biases (2)

Group session 4

Extended Breath and Body plus Sound and Thoughts Meditation

Cognitive biases (3)

4a One to one mentoring

Check inCoaching - mindfulness practice and application of behaviour change

5-7 Group session 5

As above Breath and Body, Sound and ThoughtsBreathing SpaceMindful walk

Social and environmental context

Group session 6

As above Dealing with Difficulty Meditation and Compassion Meditation

Priming and framing - emotion

Group session 7

As above Longer practiceConsidering how to maintain practice

ConsolidationBehaviour change/mindfulness

8 Post course check out

Clarify on going goals and support needs

Tailored information as needed

9 Post course review

Feedback Feed-forward session

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Summary of course plan3.2. The programme is based on the eight-week standard MBCT course, but with a theoretical base drawn from behavioural economics, behavioural psychology and sociology. Each session included:● A check in● Practice (e.g. body scan, sitting/walking meditation, sounds and

thoughts meditation)● Pair and group reflection● Theoretical reflection (e.g. exploring habit formation, the nature of

System 1 and System 2 thinking, and heuristics)● Close

Between each session participants received support information:● Via Mailchimp● Via a group Facebook page● Via responses to queries sent directly by email to the trainer

Each participant had an interview with the teacher at the beginning of the programme to clarify the practice requirements and their areas of interest and motivations for doing the course.

3.3 As the table above illustrates, the MBCEPP programme is both a work-based training programme with wide-ranging implications for people’s working and private lives, and a more bespoke programme of training for behaviour change professionals.

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4. Evaluation Results

Evaluation Methods4.1. In order to evaluate the impacts of the MBCEPP programme we developed a mixed methodology approach. This mixed methodology had three components:

- An online survey that all participants were invited to complete.6

- In-depth semi-structured interviews with a sample of 4 of the participants.- Feedback and “feed-forward” workshop convened at the end of the programme.

Online Survey4.2. We developed an online survey (using Qualtrics software) to evaluate the impacts of the MBCEPP programme. Participants completed the survey before the MBCEPP programme began, and immediately after the course was complete. The pre-course survey combined a self-assessment of participants’ knowledge of the principles of behaviour change (including topics such as habit formation, heuristics, and the role of emotion in decision-making) with the 39-point Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire. In addition to the 49 questions contained in the survey that was completed by participants before they took the programme, the post-course questionnaire also contained questions that enabled participants to reflect on the impact of the course.

In-depth Interviews4.3. Although the online survey provided some important quantitative measure of the impacts of the MBCEPP programme, we recognised that much of the impact of the course could be missed by a series of pre-set questions with standard response formats. We consequently carried out a series of 4 in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of participants. We selected participants to be interviewed on the basis of their attendance rates on the MBCEPP programme and their gender. We interviewed one male and three female participants. Three of the interviews were carried out via phone and one in person. The interviews lasted between 30 and 50 minutes. The interviews explored various aspects of the course and its impacts on the working and private lives of participants. Particular 6 10 participants completed the pre and post-course questionnaires.

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emphasis was given in the interviews to the level of success the programme was able to achieve in bringing together mindfulness and behaviour change insights.

Feedback and Feed-Forward Workshop4.4. At the end of the MBCEPP programme a feedback and “feed-forward” workshop was convened. This workshop involved all of the participants on the course, along with the MBCEPP programme leader and a researcher from Aberystwyth University. The workshop provided a small and whole group context for discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and its impacts. It enabled qualitative feedback to be gained from participants on the course who had not been interviewed. In terms of feed-forward, the session also involved discussion of how the insights of the MBCEPP programme could be integrated into the wider working of Welsh Government.

Key Results

Understanding Behavioural Change4.5. The online survey asked respondents to reflect upon their knowledge and awareness of 10 key behaviour change themes (as listed below).

- I am aware of how I create habits- I am aware of how I can change my habits- I am aware that my mind often works on ‘automatic pilot’- I am aware of how the surrounding environment can affect my

behaviour- I am aware of how different emotions can affect my behaviour- I am aware of how mental shortcuts (such as confirmation bias and

future discounting) can affect my behaviour- I am aware of how my values and beliefs can affect my behaviour- I am aware of how social norms can affect my behaviour- I understand why others find changing their behaviour difficult- I empathise with the difficulties others experience when trying to

change behaviour

4.6. Our survey revealed that when participants reflected on changes in their knowledge of these themes that there was a statistically significant increase (at the 95% confidence level)

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between the start of the programme and its end in their agreement with all 10 statements7.

4.7. This finding is particularly significant given the fact that some of the participants who completed in-depth interviews reported that they had a good working knowledge of behaviour change concepts before they began the course.

The Five Facets of Mindfulness and the impacts of mindfulness training.

4.8. The Five Facets of Mindfulness scales we used to assess the impact of the MBCEPP programme on mindfulness traits test observing, describing, awareness, non-reacting, and non-judging skills.

4.9. When the pre and post-survey results are compared we identified a statistically significant increase in mean scores (at 95% confidence level) for observing, awareness, and non-judging skills (with describing and non-reacting skills showing no significant change).8

Mindfulness and Behaviour Change

4.10. Given that it is hard to measure quantitatively the direct impact of the mindfulness dimensions of the MBCEPP programme on participants’ understanding of the principles of behaviour change, evaluation of this part of the programme relied on qualitative measures. Feedback received from the feedback/feed-forward session and in-depth interviews indicated that mindfulness had provided a valuable context within which to develop participants’ understanding of behaviour change principles.

7 These results compare the scores given for each statement on questionnaire 2 (post course) with the scores people gave on questionnaire 2 for how they would rate themselves prior to the course. When a direct comparison is made between how participants rated themselves before and after the course there is a statistically significant increase in self-reported knowledge for all statements except for “awareness of how emotions affect behaviour” and “I am aware of how social norms affect my behaviour” (with no correction for multiple tests).8 If corrections for multiple testing are applied to these results then only the awareness scale shows a statistically significant increase at the 95% confidence level.

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4.11. One of the working hypotheses of the MBCEPP programme was that mindfulness would provide a context within which to cultivate the observation and awareness of certain behavioural tendencies (particularly the play of emotion within decision-making, and the role of unconscious biases in shaping behaviour) by participants. As we can see in the quote that follows participants reported that mindfulness had enabled them to become more open to the idea of biases (and other unconscious or semi-conscious prompts to action) operating within themselves,

“I think that irrespective of the depth of your understanding or the breadth of your knowledge of behaviour change […] there is a tendency if you know it in your head it is very easy to know it in your head and think that it is someone else. Whereas what mindfulness does it forces you to not just know it in your head but to feel it in your gut, and then you go you know actually it is me, if I keep behaving like that this it will happen”

MBCEPP Participant I

It appears that mindfulness provides a context within which to develop a personally oriented and practical insight into human behavioural tendencies that more theoretically oriented approaches to behavioural learning may be unable to achieve. This participant went on to further observe that the personal insights in to behaviour change facilitated by the MBCEPP programme also had application for how they understood the organizational system of which they were a part,

“A lot of the behaviour change stuff, I might have dealt with it quite theoretically, and I might have looked at unconscious biases and gone, “oh yes I can see them out there and over there”, whereas I feel much

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more able to go, “oh, I can see them in here in this group of which I am a part of”, so it has shifted my perspective […] so rather than thinking it’s them with the problem, I now know it is us with the challenge”

MBCEPP Participant I

4.12. Our evidence suggests, however, that mindfulness does not simply provide the attention skills that are needed to notice unconscious biases and emotional impulses. It appears that combining mindfulness with behaviour change learning provided an opportunity to more openly inquire in to unconscious and semi-conscious biases. As one participant observed,

“I have come across behaviour change in the past as part of previous courses and reading and I think what I noticed was different this time […] because we had already started learning about mindfulness, I actually felt in a much more open space to think about behaviour change and to think about things like biases than I had before, so I think I got more value out of discussing it than perhaps I had in the past”

MBCEPP Participant II

What we note here is not so much that mindfulness allowed participants to notice certain behavioural tendencies within themselves, but that it enabled them to take time to understand the nature of these tendencies, where they originate from, and the extent to which they are changeable or not (as we discussed earlier in this report, this skill is a key part of what are known as deconstructive mindfulness practices, see page 7).

4.13. In addition to providing a context for exploring the nature of everyday behaviours, it appears that mindfulness has the potential to support the cultivation of alternative approaches to behaviour change. While many behaviour change techniques (such as so-called nudges) target behavioural biases as a way of exploiting the unconscious in order to achieve certain behavioural outcomes, participants on the MBCEPP

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programme recognized that mindfulness could provide the basis for more empowering behavioural techniques. One participant thus observed,

“We could call ourselves post-nudge. So we realize that there are issues of practicality and ethics with nudge and so therefore we are looking at the different things we can do hence obviously then the connections with mindfulness is a fairly straight forward next step because that gives the possibility of building resilience”

MBCEPP Participant I

While the precise ways in which mindfulness could facilitate more empowering forms of behaviour change policy remain uncertain, it is clear that in supporting deeper forms of inquiry in to the nature of human behaviour that mindfulness could encourage the development of forms of personal resilience towards the unwanted affects of unconscious biases and emotions on decision-making and action.

4.14. Further longitudinal research is needed to understand if and how the combination of mindfulness training and behaviour change learning could contribute to the emergence of new forms of more empowering and potentially effective behaviour changing policies. Results of the analysis of the MBCEPP programme discussed in this report do, however, clearly indicate that participation in the programme enabled subjects to gain awareness and new insights in to the unconscious and embodied aspects of their lives. Results also indicate that these insights made participants feel that they had a better understand of the unconscious and embodied components of other people’s behaviour and were more likely to develop and deliver policies that reflected these insights.

The MBCEPP and building capacity in the civil service.

4.15. While evidence demonstrates that the MBCEPP programme both enhanced certain mindfulness traits of participants, and enabled them to approach behaviour change policies in new ways, our evaluation also

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indicates that the course had a series of more general workplace benefits for civil servants. What is interesting about these benefits is that they appear to have emerged not just because of the provision of mindfulness or behaviour change training, but out of the particular ways in which the programme combined mindfulness and behaviour change insights. In this context, these reported benefits do not simply reflect the observed benefits that existing work has shown the application of mindfulness training can bring to workplaces. What is particularly interesting is that participants suggest that the broader benefits associated with the MBCEPP programme had particular salience for those working in the civil service.

4.16. Participants observed that the MBCEPP programme had enabled them to be less reactive in working situations and consequently had a beneficial impact on their interpretation skills. One participant commented that,

“I think I was pretty much wrong in what I thought […] I think I was thinking it was more like a meditation [course] where as I actually found it much more powerful than that […] When I first started I thought this will be good because it is going to give me space to think that I don’t normally have and it is going to give me clarity of thought and a chance to make sure and check in with myself to ensure that I am doing the right thing. I did find that I did all that, but what it also did, it had a sort of active element to it that I hadn’t anticipated where you can almost use it like an action learning tool, so even when you are in the moment or working and developing things, the fact that you have got that background in mindfulness I find makes you approach things in a calmer more balanced way and be much more aware of the other people that are involved”

MBCEPP Participant 2

The ability to be able to approach decision-making in a more (behaviourally) balanced way is a theme that was identified in a previous MBCEPP trial (see https://changingbehaviours.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/mindfulness-and-behaviour-change-an-evaluation/). One participant tried to articulate this difficult to describe skill in the following way,

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“It is subtle, it is like having more open eyes, more ability to see, or hear, and it is like having slightly more time to work out what the real reaction is”

MBCEPP Participant 1

Another participant described it in the following terms,

“We are under a lot of pressure. The pressure to think quickly about things and provide answers, to think accurately, a big tension I have here, we have to do things that takes a lot of time and thinking, and thought and evidence and having to produce that very accurately and that is quite a strain and it has given me some techniques to pause and think and actually not rush into things […]”

MBCEPP Participant 3

The interpretative skill that participants describe appears to be a combination of a sense of calmness when approaching a decision; a deeper appreciation of how their emotional reaction to the issue shapes their responses to it; and a sense of being able to allow oneself more time and space within which to make a decision. However this skill is described it appears to have strategic significance to a civil service that is committed to evidence based policy-making. One participant thus reflected,

“I think that this speaks really strong to something which our Permanent Secretary talks about which is the need for evidenced based decision-making, the need to be actually more rational and objective in our

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decision-making is a requirement in the civil service code, we are suppose to be honest, we are supposed to be objective, and actually you can’t do that without understanding the emotions and the biases and all that as part of the picture, if you haven’t got that feel for the other things you are working in a very narrow zone, which looks terribly logical and actually isn’t at all rational […] so [this programme is] a means of helping the civil servant to become more objective in the way they are giving advice and as a means of improving our relations with stakeholders as a way of understanding where we are and where they are […]”

MBCEPP Participant 1

4.17. Participants also identified that the programme had enabled them to develop skills of adaptive creativity that were particularly helpful in the context of the work of civil servants. One participant observed,

“It [MBCEPP training] enables [you] to be quite flexible and adaptable day-to-day […] you do have to turn your hand to a frightening number of types of task, and also I suppose because we are generalists, we move from subject area to subject area, so tomorrow I could in theory be advising or writing on curricula for 14 year olds, apart from having being a 14 year, what qualifies me to do that, and may be just being able to use both the mindfulness and behaviour change aspects to approach any subject would be helpful irrespective of the subject you are trying to tackle”

MBCEPP Participant 4

A different participant also observed,

“Helping with creativity, I just think that helps to open your mind. I like being able to focus more in to things […] it turns your mind in to be able to focus better, but I think as well it helps your mind to move out and to think about possibilities that you haven’t considered before”

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MBCEPP Participant 2

The cultivation of adaptability and creativity appear to be particularly important in the context of working environments that may not always support the development and expression of such skills. It was thus observed,

“Part of what we have noticed is that people dropped part of their brain as they walk through the door, so we have these incredibly capable people with huge potential, and as they walk through this barrier they leave a huge chunk of that beyond, and what we are discovering is that we need them to bring their whole selves in because that is so much more useful. And also once they bring the whole of themselves in we can start to look at where are their souls trying to take them and what is the match between that and their day job and then we can get something that really sings. At the moment we have a real tension between the day job being highly bureaucratic, processed, transactional and trying bring that into a transformational behaviour change relational thing”

MBCEPP Participant 1

4.18. Related to adaptive creativity, participants also reflected on how the combination of mindfulness training and behaviour change education supported the development of forms of emotional intelligence that were highly beneficial within their day-to-day work. This emotional intelligence appears to relate to an enhanced ability to understand the reaction and behaviours of others in the workplace. One participant thus observed,

“[…] one of the things that has happened which has been really useful for me is that I have been able to be much more aware of what is happening around me with people’s reaction and even just focusing on concepts and things like that in a non-judgmental way. Trying to actually just open

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myself to say OK this is what the theory is or this is what is happening in the room and to have time to process that and actually get the full benefit of the experience”

“It has been very useful in dealing with quote unquote difficult personalities because I have been able to take a step back and actually think about OK how is it from their point of view [..] what is their motivation, where are they coming from and how can I work with them more effectively. It is partly about amending the way I interact with them, but is also assertiveness on my part, so it is clarity in both ways really”

MBCEPP Participant 2

4.19. When the impacts of the MBCEPP programme are taken together it is interesting to note that they appear to cut across the so-called constructive and deconstructive dimensions of mindfulness practices 9. Constructive forms of mindfulness meditation focus on the cultivation of empathy and a greater sense of ‘relational orientation’ within the subject10. Through its particular combination of mindfulness and behaviour change, the MBCEPP appears to have cultivated a greater sense of relational awareness and compassion towards the behavioural tendencies of others. It has been suggested by participants that these constructive elements of the MBCEPP programme have been valuable for both team building and working within the civil service, and for the ways in which civil servants relate to external stakeholders. Deconstructive forms of mindfulness meditation are concerned with ‘practices that use self-inquiry to elicit insights into the nature and dynamics of conscious experience’11. Through a focused concerned with deconstructive processes relating to bodily sensations, the impacts of thoughts, and various forms of affective phenomenon, the MBCEPP programme supports what Dahl et al describe as a an experimental shift in modes of experiencing (519). This experiential shift has enabled participants to gain new insights into the role of unconscious biases, environments, and emotions in shaping their own behaviour, and to begin to perceive how they might change the ways in which they respond to such behavioural prompts.

9 Dahl, C.J. Lutz, A. and R.J. Davidson (2015) ‘Reconstructing and deconstructing the self’: congnitive mechanisms in meditation practices’ Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19: 515-523.10 Ibid: 518.11 Ibid: 519.

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Key Terms GlossaryAutomatic Mind: The cognitive processes that are involved in making decisions without having to engage in effortful thought. The automatic mind is actually responsible for a significant portion of all human decision-making, although we are often not conscious of its role in guiding our daily actions.

ISM Model: An integrated model of behaviour change developed by Andrew Darnton. The ISM model draws attention to the role of individual (habits and values), social (norms and networks) and material (infrastructures and rules and regulations) factors in shaping human behaviour.

Cognitive biases (heuristcs): Behavioural shortcuts that we use to assist in decision-making. Researchers have identified over 100 cognitive biases. Prominent biases include the status quo bias (the tendency to continue behaving in the way you have previously done); loss aversion (the human propensity to dislike loss more than to favour gain); and future bias (the proclivity to favour benefits in the here and now compared to ones that only accrue over longer periods of time).

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