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Mindfulness meditation can increase selfishness and reduce generosity

32 points by sam345 5y ago

salt-thrower 5y ago
I’ll take this like I take every psychological study done on college students - with a massive grain of salt. How’s that reproducibility problem coming along these days?
ipaddr 5y ago
There are so many types of meditation. Mindfulness meditation makes you more aware of you and everything around you. Another type of meditation you would do would involve sending love to people, the world. This is the meditation that makes more generosity and fills you with love. The second type works better if you can enter a deep state.. mindfulness is a step to achieve that.
tailspin2019 5y ago
Full article title: > Mindfulness meditation can increase selfishness and reduce generosity among those with independent self-construals This is one of those cases where the trimmed Hacker News title loses an important bit of context: "among those with independent self-construals" I also think prepending the word "western" or "US" to the title would give a bit more context as to what this study is actually looking at. It's not necessarily looking at mindfulness as taught by the Buddhist tradition, for example, but more at the US/western-centric, commoditised version of mindfulness, which in fairness, is called out in the article and the study, but could be overlooked if just going by the title alone. From the study's intro: > Mindfulness is big business. The U.S. meditation market, which includes classes, studios,and apps, is predicted to grow to over $2 billion by 2022. > We propose that understanding the complex effects of mindfulness on prosocial behavior requires a recognition that mindfulness originated in societies that were highly interdependent in self-construal, but mindfulness in the West, including the U.S., is practiced in a context of predominantly independent self-construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). So we're specifically talking about US, or more broadly, "western", versions of mindfulness practice here. The title is also negatively skewed, but the overall outcome of the study (from their paper) is actually that mindfulness is likely to be neutral, and simply magnifies what's already there: > Our findings suggest that mindfulness on its own is not prosocial—or antisocial. Any form of "technology" (if we use that word in a very board sense) usually has the capability to magnify existing traits and behaviours. Whether social media, meditation or mindfulness, "technology" itself isn't necessarily inherently good or bad. For example, social media often magnifies some of the worst parts of human psychology and behaviour. It doesn't really _cause_ that behaviour - it just brings it out of us. We have to be very intentional (and mindful) to ensure that we don't just default to our normal "look for the bad, look for the danger" instincts, which is what evolution has hammered into us for survival. So, with regards to mindfulness and meditation - you can _choose_ to use it to expand your compassion and generosity towards others—and many mindfulness practices have this approach built right in to them—or you can use it to focus more inwardly and (I'm sure) become more selfish. Or you can not choose anything intentional at all, and just let it take you in whatever default direction you may already be drifting in. Letting it amplify whatever personal or cultural default norms/traits that you already tend towards. (And the cultural norms/traits of the study participants in this case are those of US university students). While the study described in the article looks perfectly valid, and is interesting, I wouldn't want mindfulness in general to be overly tainted as "possibly harmful". It's still one of the more positive behaviours, by far, that one could engage themselves in. Even the bastardised US/western versions. And I count myself as a practitioner of "bastardised western mindfulness". It's all relative. There is something interesting in the findings that may also be worth looking at more closely; When "priming" the participants with a more inward or outward focus, the increase in positive effects for the positively primed group was more pronounced than the increase in negative (more selfish) effects for the negative primed group. So in other words, when using mindfulness to magnify the effect of an existing state (positive or negative), positive traits were magnified to a greater degree than negative traits were. I find this interesting. While the paper summarises that mindfulness is not inherently prosocial or antisocial, you could also interpret from these results that mindfulness does actually have a slightly prosocial/positive bias - in that it's more likely to bring out and magnify positive traits like compassion and generosity than it is to magnify negative traits like selfishness and greed. So it may be showing that the net effect of mindfulness may still be positive, and not necessarily (as they say) neutral. For the "envelope stuffing" part of this study, I'd also be interested in whether there was a general effect on willpower and self-regulation between the two study groups that may have affected their ability to persist at the envelope stuffing task. Given that willpower and self-regulation are inherently self-directed (we can regulate only ourselves and not others) does being more focussed on the self during a period of mindfulness lead to a slightly higher depletion of willpower and self-regulation ability?
foxyv 5y ago
In my personal experience. Mindfulness tends to highlight and emphasise parts of yourself. This is great for getting to the bottom of things with careful thought. It pairs VERY well with cognitive behavioural therapy and loving kindness practice. However, I can imagine that mindfulness on it's own, without any guidance on how to handle those things that come up could be devastating. If you dredge up anxiety, selfishness, hatred without knowing how to address those negative parts of yourself; you are not going to have a great time. However, keep in mind that selfishness is not always bad, and generosity is not always good. Both can be either healing or destructive in their own right.
pmdulaney 5y ago
It's your right to be selfish and ungenerous whether it is by means of "mindfulness meditation" or some other means.
sergiomattei 5y ago
Being selfish isn't a bad thing.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  According to Wikipedia, > Selfishness is being concerned excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one's own advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others. > Selfishness is the opposite of altruism or selflessness; and has also been contrasted (as by C. S. Lewis) with self-centeredness. How is that not a bad thing?
  - sergiomattei 5y ago
    I see nothing wrong with that definition. The exclusively bit I take issue with, but that's about it.
GaryTang 5y ago
A take I don’t usually see is how it is selfish to not focus on yourself. For example, if you are consuming more than producing, why are you not focusing more on yourself in order to produce more value for the people around you?
guilhas 5y ago
Most people ignore their needs because of outside pressure. So this might be good, people listening to one self

32 points by sam345 5y ago

I’ll take this like I take every psychological study done on college students - with a massive grain of salt. How’s that reproducibility problem coming along these days?

ipaddr 5y ago

There are so many types of meditation. Mindfulness meditation makes you more aware of you and everything around you. Another type of meditation you would do would involve sending love to people, the world. This is the meditation that makes more generosity and fills you with love. The second type works better if you can enter a deep state.. mindfulness is a step to achieve that.

tailspin2019 5y ago

Full article title: > Mindfulness meditation can increase selfishness and reduce generosity among those with independent self-construals This is one of those cases where the trimmed Hacker News title loses an important bit of context: "among those with independent self-construals" I also think prepending the word "western" or "US" to the title would give a bit more context as to what this study is actually looking at. It's not necessarily looking at mindfulness as taught by the Buddhist tradition, for example, but more at the US/western-centric, commoditised version of mindfulness, which in fairness, is called out in the article and the study, but could be overlooked if just going by the title alone. From the study's intro: > Mindfulness is big business. The U.S. meditation market, which includes classes, studios,and apps, is predicted to grow to over $2 billion by 2022. > We propose that understanding the complex effects of mindfulness on prosocial behavior requires a recognition that mindfulness originated in societies that were highly interdependent in self-construal, but mindfulness in the West, including the U.S., is practiced in a context of predominantly independent self-construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). So we're specifically talking about US, or more broadly, "western", versions of mindfulness practice here. The title is also negatively skewed, but the overall outcome of the study (from their paper) is actually that mindfulness is likely to be neutral, and simply magnifies what's already there: > Our findings suggest that mindfulness on its own is not prosocial—or antisocial. Any form of "technology" (if we use that word in a very board sense) usually has the capability to magnify existing traits and behaviours. Whether social media, meditation or mindfulness, "technology" itself isn't necessarily inherently good or bad. For example, social media often magnifies some of the worst parts of human psychology and behaviour. It doesn't really _cause_ that behaviour - it just brings it out of us. We have to be very intentional (and mindful) to ensure that we don't just default to our normal "look for the bad, look for the danger" instincts, which is what evolution has hammered into us for survival. So, with regards to mindfulness and meditation - you can _choose_ to use it to expand your compassion and generosity towards others—and many mindfulness practices have this approach built right in to them—or you can use it to focus more inwardly and (I'm sure) become more selfish. Or you can not choose anything intentional at all, and just let it take you in whatever default direction you may already be drifting in. Letting it amplify whatever personal or cultural default norms/traits that you already tend towards. (And the cultural norms/traits of the study participants in this case are those of US university students). While the study described in the article looks perfectly valid, and is interesting, I wouldn't want mindfulness in general to be overly tainted as "possibly harmful". It's still one of the more positive behaviours, by far, that one could engage themselves in. Even the bastardised US/western versions. And I count myself as a practitioner of "bastardised western mindfulness". It's all relative. There is something interesting in the findings that may also be worth looking at more closely; When "priming" the participants with a more inward or outward focus, the increase in positive effects for the positively primed group was more pronounced than the increase in negative (more selfish) effects for the negative primed group. So in other words, when using mindfulness to magnify the effect of an existing state (positive or negative), positive traits were magnified to a greater degree than negative traits were. I find this interesting. While the paper summarises that mindfulness is not inherently prosocial or antisocial, you could also interpret from these results that mindfulness does actually have a slightly prosocial/positive bias - in that it's more likely to bring out and magnify positive traits like compassion and generosity than it is to magnify negative traits like selfishness and greed. So it may be showing that the net effect of mindfulness may still be positive, and not necessarily (as they say) neutral. For the "envelope stuffing" part of this study, I'd also be interested in whether there was a general effect on willpower and self-regulation between the two study groups that may have affected their ability to persist at the envelope stuffing task. Given that willpower and self-regulation are inherently self-directed (we can regulate only ourselves and not others) does being more focussed on the self during a period of mindfulness lead to a slightly higher depletion of willpower and self-regulation ability?

foxyv 5y ago

In my personal experience. Mindfulness tends to highlight and emphasise parts of yourself. This is great for getting to the bottom of things with careful thought. It pairs VERY well with cognitive behavioural therapy and loving kindness practice. However, I can imagine that mindfulness on it's own, without any guidance on how to handle those things that come up could be devastating. If you dredge up anxiety, selfishness, hatred without knowing how to address those negative parts of yourself; you are not going to have a great time. However, keep in mind that selfishness is not always bad, and generosity is not always good. Both can be either healing or destructive in their own right.

pmdulaney 5y ago

It's your right to be selfish and ungenerous whether it is by means of "mindfulness meditation" or some other means.

sergiomattei 5y ago

Being selfish isn't a bad thing.

FractalHQ 5y ago
According to Wikipedia, > Selfishness is being concerned excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one's own advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others. > Selfishness is the opposite of altruism or selflessness; and has also been contrasted (as by C. S. Lewis) with self-centeredness. How is that not a bad thing?
- sergiomattei 5y ago
  I see nothing wrong with that definition. The exclusively bit I take issue with, but that's about it.

GaryTang 5y ago

A take I don’t usually see is how it is selfish to not focus on yourself. For example, if you are consuming more than producing, why are you not focusing more on yourself in order to produce more value for the people around you?

guilhas 5y ago

Most people ignore their needs because of outside pressure. So this might be good, people listening to one self