Contemplative traditions place considerable emphasis on using mindfulness to critically investigate the nebulous concept of "self." In fact, insight into the true nature of self is widely regarded as a pivotal mechanism underlying the transformative effects of mindfulness practice. Despite this strong emphasis on understanding the "self" within the contemplative traditions from which mindfulness is derived, little research in psychology has explicitly examined the relationship between mindfulness and self-construal. Furthermore, while traditional mindfulness practices are understood to facilitate insight that dissolves the self-other boundary which in turn leads to behavioral manifestations of compassion, the psychological study of mindfulness has thus far largely neglected examining pro-social outcomes of mindfulness in realistic contexts, instead relying overwhelmingly on self-report measures or focusing on cognitive and clinical outcomes. Furthermore, the environmental implications of mindfulness have received hardly any attention in spite of the growing need for scalable solutions to worsening environmental conditions throughout the world. Meanwhile, social psychology has carefully investigated cultural and individual differences in independent and interdependent self-construal and devised an experimental framework in which to examine pro-social behaviors, including willingness to help another in need as well as resource sharing.

In the present work, the existing social psychological research on self-construal is contextualized with the existing research on mindfulness. Three studies are then outlined: Study 1 serves as a correlational study intended to establish whether there is any relationship between trait mindfulness and various measures of self-construal. It also introduces a new measure of self-construal, adapted from the Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (IOS; Aron, Aron & Smollan, 1992) for greater flexibility in measuring the perceived relationship between self and the environment, community, and one's own thoughts. Studies 2.a. and 2.b. are experimental manipulations examining the effects of a brief 10-minute mindfulness induction on subsequent pro-social (i.e., willingness to help) and pro-environmental (i.e., recycling) behaviors. Study 3 is another experimental manipulation drawing from research on terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) which suggests that mortality salience, or being reminded of the inevitability of one's own impending demise, leads to self-esteem striving, cultural world-view defense, and most notably in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination. The results of these studies are examined in the context of the convergence of mindfulness and social psychology, opening up new avenues for research in this still young and emerging field of "contemplative science."