The 2017 Cheiron Young Scholar Award goes to Shayna Fox Lee, a doctoral student in History and Theory of Psychology at York University in Toronto, for her paper, “Psychology’s Own Mindfulness: Ellen Langer, the Rise of Scientific Interest in Buddhist Practices, and the Social Politics of Helping Individuals Help Themselves.”

Fox Lee contrasts Ellen Langer’s version of  ‘mindfulness’ – which grew out of Langer’s 1970s social psychology experiments on ‘mindlessness’ – with other forms of  mindfulness that have different origins, including Buddhist contemplative practices as well as secular versions of contemplative practices. Fox Lee offers a critical analysis of the social politics and cultural context in which mindfulness research and applications emerged and developed. In this way she exposes debates that might promote critiques of the ways ‘mindfulness’ is conceptualized and practiced in different contemporary subfields, including clinical, health, and positive psychology.

–2017 Cheiron Young Scholar Award Committee

Nancy Digdon (chair), Katalin Dzinas, Rodrigo Lopes Miranda