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We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, open and unbiased. But how can we ensure that algorithmic governance structures are both? This article shares the results of a collective intelligence workshop that addressed exactly this question. The workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider (a) barriers to legitimate and effective algorithmic governance and (b) the research methods needed to address the nature and impact of specific barriers. An interactive management workshop technique was used to harness the collective intelligence of this multidisciplinary group. This method enabled participants to produce a framework and research agenda for those who are concerned about algorithmic governance. We outline this research agenda below, providing a detailed map of key research themes, questions and methods that our workshop felt ought to be pursued. This builds upon existing work on research agendas for critical algorithm studies in a unique way through the method of collective intelligence.

BackgroundArguments for including mindfulness instruction in higher education have included claims about the benefits of mindfulness practice for critical thinking. While there is theoretical support for this claim, empirical support is limited. The aim of this study was to test this claim by investigating the effects of an online mindfulness intervention on executive function, critical thinking skills and associated thinking dispositions.MethodParticipants recruited from a university were randomly allocated, following screening, to either a mindfulness meditation group or a sham meditation group. Both the researchers and the participants were blind to group allocation. The intervention content for both groups was delivered through the Headspace online application, an application which provides guided meditations to users. Both groups were requested to complete 30 guided mindfulness meditation sessions across a 6 week period. Primary outcome measures assessed mindfulness, executive functioning, critical thinking, actively open-minded thinking and need for cognition. Secondary outcome measures assessed wellbeing, positive and negative affect, and real-world outcomes.ResultsIn a series of full-information maximum likelihood analyses, significant increases in mindfulness dispositions and critical thinking scores were observed in both the mindfulness meditation and sham meditation groups. However, no significant effects of group allocation were observed for either primary or secondary measures. Furthermore, mediation analyses testing the indirect effect of group allocation through executive functioning performance did not reveal a significant result and moderation analyses showed that the effect of the intervention did not depend on baseline levels of the key thinking dispositions, actively open-minded thinking and need for cognition.ConclusionNo evidence was found to suggest that engaging in guided mindfulness practice for 6 weeks using the online intervention method applied in this study improves critical thinking performance. While further research is warranted, claims regarding the benefits of mindfulness practice for critical thinking should be tempered in the meantime.Trial registrationThe study was initially registered in the AEA Social Science Registry before the recruitment was initiated (RCT ID: AEARCTR-0000756; 14/11/2015) and retrospectively registered in the ISRCTN registry (RCT ID: ISRCTN16588423) in line with requirements for publishing the study protocol.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40359-018-0226-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world.

Mindfulness originated in the Buddhist tradition as a way of cultivating clarity of thought. Despite the fact that this behavior is best captured using critical thinking (CT) assessments, no studies have examined the effects of mindfulness on CT or the mechanisms underlying any such possible relationship. Even so, mindfulness has been suggested as being beneficial for CT in higher education. CT is recognized as an important higher-order cognitive process which involves the ability to analyze and evaluate evidence and arguments. Such non-automatic, reflective responses generally require the engagement of executive functioning (EF) which includes updating, inhibition, and shifting of representations in working memory. Based on research showing that mindfulness enhances aspects of EF and certain higher-order cognitive processes, we hypothesized that individuals higher in facets of dispositional mindfulness would demonstrate greater CT performance, and that this relationship would be mediated by EF. Cross-sectional assessment of these constructs in a sample of 178 university students was achieved using the observing and non-reactivity sub-scales of the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire, a battery of EF tasks and the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment. Our hypotheses were tested by constructing a multiple meditation model which was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Evidence was found for inhibition mediating the relationships between both observing and non-reactivity and CT in different ways. Indirect-only (or full) mediation was demonstrated for the relationship between observing, inhibition, and CT. Competitive mediation was demonstrated for the relationship between non-reactivity, inhibition, and CT. This suggests additional mediators of the relationship between non-reactivity and CT which are not accounted for in this model and have a negative effect on CT in addition to the positive effect mediated by inhibition. These findings are discussed in the context of the Default Interventionist Dual Process Theory of Higher-order Cognition and previous studies on mindfulness, self-regulation, EF, and higher-order cognition. In summary, dispositional mindfulness appears to facilitate CT performance and this effect is mediated by the inhibition component of EF. However, this relationship is not straightforward which suggests many possibilities for future research.