The Interactive Effect of Dispositional and Induced Mindfulness on Free Throw Shooting

Basketball is a physically and mentally taxing sport requiring focus, and mental endurance. Mindfulness, as a state, is being mentally present, fully aware, and concentrated despite distracting stimuli (Gooding & Gardner, 2009). Mindfulness practice can improve sports performance both broadly (Anderson, Haraldsdottir, & Watson, 2021), and specifically for basketball (Gooding & Gardner, 2009). Dispositional mindfulness entails tendencies to be mindful across contexts (Brown and Ryan, 2003). I tested whether there would be an interaction between dispositional mindfulness and a short-term mindfulness intervention in basketball free-throw shooting. Participants will complete the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al., 2006), identifying levels of dispositional mindfulness. By random assignment, participants will receive a short-term mindfulness breathing intervention or no intervention. Participants will then shoot ten free throws. A possible outcome is that dispositional mindfulness and the short-term intervention will have an additive effect on free-throw percentage. Alternatively, another possible outcome is an interaction between the short-term mindfulness intervention and dispositional mindfulness, such that the intervention will be stronger for high-mindful participants than for low-mindful participants. My thesis may thus support using mindfulness practice as an intervention and training method to improve athlete performance.