10 ms·

The Morality of Meditation

56 points by sethbannon 13y ago

seren 13y ago
It is not clear from the article how the empathy level of all participants was assessed before the beginning of the experiment. From what I read, it could have been random luck that people with more empathy were selected to follow the meditation training. What I am missing there ?
- jilebedev 13y ago
  Moreover, would the meditation participants behave compassionately in other situations? A waiting room forms an implicit assumption that the present humans will have further interaction. What of compassion shown to stranger where the subject can be reasonably expected to assume a lack of interaction after the place? Still further: what of the gender bias? A forty person study seems hardly likely to account for the gender bias inherent in compassionate activities. I would suspect that a male would be more inclined to give up his seat to an attractive female than any other, even regardless of the circumstances (broken foot, lack of chairs, etc.) This "study" warrants some careful reading.
- csbrooks 13y ago
  I'm not a scientist, but doesn't a large enough sample-size greatly limit the chance of this, statistically?
  - pekk 13y ago
    Making a sample larger cannot correct for nonrandom biases in who you sampled.
    - mjb 13y ago
      "We then randomly assigned 20 of them to take part in weekly meditation classes" It makes sense to be critical of bad experiment design, and skeptical about extraordinary results. On the other hand, claiming bad experiment design based on the amount of data presented in the article seems premature. Maybe wait for the full paper and criticize the methodology if it appears flawed.
      - jessriedel 13y ago
        > Maybe wait for the full paper and criticize the methodology if it appears flawed. Eh, if the authors and their university are going to promote this in the media--and, make no mistake, this has been promoted heavily in order for it to reach the NYTimes--then I think it's fair game. You don't get to publicize your claims on the national stage and then avoid criticism until after your paper is published and the reader has forgotten everything (except the vague impression that meditation is backed by science).
    - jessriedel 13y ago
      That's not what seren was suggesting: > it could have been random luck that people with more empathy were selected to follow the meditation training.
- justinhj 13y ago
  Assessing empathy would be inaccurate and subjective. The act of assessment may bias the final result. The random selection into two groups should do better than that, assuming the sample size is statistically significant. This experiment can simply be repeated to build more confidence in the result.
- reddit_clone 13y ago
  There is at least one more aspect to this , other than lack of empathy, I can think of. Some people (ahem) are pathologically shy. Getting up in front of all those people and offering the seat to the injured person can be a physically painful act since it draws so much attention.
Tomino 13y ago
I cannot believe that people are actually paid and getting popular on base of this kind of experiments. I mean, unless I am missing some crucial point, the results are just some random numbers that can point out only the fact that not many people have manners to give up seat for whoever needs it. And even that statistic is useless as it would have to be performed on many more people in order to have some solid ground. I wish I would have gone study psychology really. Lot of money and exposure for something that could be performed by primary school pupils...
- dschiptsov 13y ago
  Yeah, they caught something statistically, and then interpret that something according to their grossly oversimplified assumptions, while there are lots of overlooked or plainly ignored factors. It is a big question whether or not a primitive statistical methods are applicable to such vastly complex system as brain, given that no one could trace the causes of this or that manifested behavior, any other way but popular Freudian memes.
- rattray 13y ago
  You could say the same thing about most people who make money and achieve some level of fame -- especially artists, designers, many entrepreneurs, and entertainers (including sports stars). Many times, terrific results seem like they could have been "easy" to come up with. That doesn't take away from the fact that they had the creativity to think of it, did it, and added to our collective knowledge as a result. Sure, the results seem obvious in retrospect, and the process doesn't seem too tough to put together. But I'm grateful for their work nonetheless.
  - 1337biz 13y ago
    But those do usually not slap the "science" label on their result/products. You would most likely laugh in a similar fashion at some guy who's product works well for 10 out of 20 random clients and now goes around telling the world that he has scientific evidence that his product is the only product that got it right. The social world is complex and anyone pretending things can be explained by a simple cause-effect relationship is just a charlatan.
dschiptsov 13y ago
"MEDITATION is fast becoming a fashionable tool for improving your mind." - Oh, RLY?! LOL! WUT. As for rest of the nonsense, any more or less authoritative teacher will tell you that it requires years of deliberate practice to attain very basic level of being continuously aware and in control of ones inner states. It is not mere sitting and counting one's breath. This is just a training drill for the very first realization, that thoughts are not continuous, that there is a gaps between them, and that the thought could be stopped, but not by self-denial or will, but naturally ceased, like an unnecessary tension. This is just a realization (the most important one) but one cannot stop ones mind without forcing oneself, and even that only for a few seconds. This is NOT the goal of meditation. It is only the very first step. But the next step - from this very first realization to developing a habit of being self-aware continuously, without any conscious effort requires years of practice. Different schools and branches has different techniques to practice daily in order to develop this habit of permanent self-awareness with in pop-culture is called the third eye (which looks inside). Practices which are based on body/breath control to change the state of the mind usually called yoga, at least in Tibetan or Indian tradition, but there are many so-called analytic meditation techniques, such as famous Tibetan meditation on a corpse (to realize the true nature of our body) and so on. So, please, cut that 8-week-course crap out. What they "measured" is elevated self-esteem, or better self-confidence, or just felling special or even enlightened - any kind of these naive pre-mature "experiences" each and any novice had had. It takes years of daily practice, as any other talent development.
- mjb 13y ago
  > So, please, cut that 8-week-course crap out. What they "measured" is elevated self-esteem, or better self-confidence, or just felling special or even enlightened - any kind of these naive pre-mature "experiences" each and any novice had had. If a novice can improve themselves in only 8 weeks, that doesn't seem to imply that only practicing for 8 weeks is "crap". Rather, it seems to imply that an 8 week course may be truly valuable. It takes a great deal of daily practice to master chess, but even a few hours of instruction and the occasional game provides many people with pleasure, a chance for social interaction, and practice in careful thought. You don't need to truly master something for its practice to have value. > any more or less authoritative teacher will tell you that it requires years of deliberate practice to attain very basic level of being continuously aware and in control of ones inner states Perhaps that is true, but the article says that there are other benefits. On the other hand, it's important to beware of any teacher that tells you that you need years of (paid) instruction to get any benefit from something.
300bps 13y ago
>WHEN a participant entered the waiting area for our lab, he (or she) found three chairs, two of which were already occupied. Naturally, he sat in the remaining chair. As he waited, a fourth person, using crutches and wearing a boot for a broken foot, entered the room and audibly sighed in pain as she leaned uncomfortably against a wall. ...and the results: >Although only 16 percent of the nonmeditators gave up their seats — an admittedly disheartening fact — the proportion rose to 50 percent among those who had meditated. So they had 39 people total. 20 meditators and 19 non-meditators. Of that, 3 non-meditators of 19 gave up their seat and 10 meditators of 20 gave up their seat. Did they perform this study on sociopaths? I find it incredible that any able-bodied person would not give up a chair to a person on crutches.
- loginalready 13y ago
  Methinks this is not about morality or (the lack of) compassion, but being more aware of your environment, i.e. mindfulness. I would suggests the other people simply weren't consciously aware enough to notice, but would have gladly given up their seat if someone else pointed it out to them.
  - hosh 13y ago
    I remember reading another story where, they observed people being immersed in compassion or at least, being considerate. The experimenters then told the experimental subjects they needed to hurry to another building. Along the way, they passed someone who needed help in some way. Generally, even though the people were pumped, the ones who were told to hurry were more likely to ignore the person who needed help. I don't think it is fruitful to try to scientifically evaluate morality. Morality from my own practice, naturally arises from awareness of [i]self[/i] as well as environment. What the professor said about meditation fostering perception of interconnectedness syncs up with my own experiences of this practice.
- davorak 13y ago
  > Did they perform this study on sociopaths? I find it incredible that any able-bodied person would not give up a chair to a person on crutches. How will you correct your expectations given the results of the study? It is possible they hired a bad actor for the person with the crutches and therefore did not trigger the same response as if the person was actually in pain.
Alex3917 13y ago
> My favored explanation, though, derives from a different aspect of meditation: its ability to foster a view that all beings are interconnected. What a load of crap. There is no way you'd experience that after meditating once a week for eight weeks.
- rattray 13y ago
  Have you ever meditated?
  - delluminatus 13y ago
    I have meditated daily for months and never experienced any sense of interconnectedness. Have you ever meditated?
  - Alex3917 13y ago
    I've got one 10-day vipassana retreat under my belt. But I've also read enough to know that the 'feeling of interconnectedness' the author is describing is associated with states that take several years of serious practice to achieve.
- jshen 13y ago
  Why not?
- lnanek2 13y ago
  You could get the same effect as seen in the study just by priming the participants with compassionate readings vs. violent readings right before the test situation. Psychology studies do this all the time with mental behavior. That's a difference in thirty minutes, so eight weeks is way more than that.
dbpokorny 13y ago
I found this video on meditation to be direct, unapologetic, enlightening, and inspiring (12:16) "When you make use of the Dharma, this is not Dharma anymore" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvmgpyVcYJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvmgpyVcYJc I hope you enjoy :)
mchusma 13y ago
I found this to be a great example of the flaws with "evidence based" reporting rather than "science based" Science would suggest that this result is preliminary, and results should be studied with Bayesian statistics. This article makes headlines, sure, but shouldn't on its own dictate any behavior. PS. I found the false dichotomy between things like "moving for a person with crutches" and "being good at your job" annoying. This was likely more a product of reporting than the study though.
- rattray 13y ago
  It seems more like the difference between "reporting" and "science" to me. If you're interested in the science, consider reading the linked research paper instead[0]. It may adopt something closer to the tone you're looking for. FWIW, I agree that Bayesian statistics strikes me as regrettably underused in modern social science. But it's my impression that scientists of many stripes continue to use classical statistics instead, so calling something that doesn't use Bayes "not science" seems a bit off. [0] http://www.socialemotions.org/page5/files/Condon.etal.2013.pdf http://www.socialemotions.org/page5/files/Condon.etal.2013.p...
- hosh 13y ago
  The article made no pretense at being journalistic reporting. It's published in the Op-Ed section, after all.
d23 13y ago
Prediction: this comments section will be filled with people claiming this is a load of hogwash (and I can already see it happening). My response: do the results really seem that crazy? To me, it seems as obvious as comparing two groups of exercisers and non-exercisers to see who are about to last longer on a treadmill. If you practice something enough, you're going to see benefits. Practicing getting past those negative elements of your psyche for 8 weeks is surely going to cause you to be a bit kinder to those around you.
msluyter 13y ago
An alternative explanation: a group of people were selected to participate in meditation training. This heightened their awareness of the supposed benefits/effects of meditation as well as its historical traditions. Perhaps some of them read a bit about Buddhism and compassion, or were freshly reminded of such things. This primed them to think of themselves as being more aware, compassionate, etc... and that self image would be in the foreground, since they'd just started meditation so recently. Hence, perhaps when they found themselves in a social situation that called for such things, their enhanced self image was able to override the bystander effect. IOW: "I've been meditating lately and meditation is supposed to make you a nicer person, so I should do something!" This would be in accord with lots of studies that show how you prime someone's thinking can affect how they behave. You could test the above hypothesis by studying people who weren't recently introduced to meditation, that is, whose self image had some time to return to some sort of base state. The trick would be to disentangle the actual effects of the meditative process from the aura of associations surrounding Buddhism in particular, and that might be impossible. To clarify my question: is it the meditation itself that makes you more compassionate, or the engaging in a practice long associated with compassion that makes you more compassionate?
- lcedp 13y ago
  In meditation books it's often said one who wants to start meditating should have intention to become a better person otherwise it would make no sense. So to answer you question, I take a guess, it's conscious effort + meditation as a tool to keep you focused on your said goal by lowering anxiety.
- eshvk 13y ago
  I am personally incredibly skeptical of eastern religious practices so getting in mindfulness was a big step for me. So the way mindfulness works, it definitely forces you to become more aware of the world. Self-compassion is a big component of the mindfulness process (it is very hard to sit quietly for X minutes without having to calm your own judgmental thoughts). I don't' think there is a long term biological effect in me. If I stop meditating for a few days, I can feel myself coming back to a base state. However, as I keep doing this, it gets much better. So yes I think the very act of regular meditation helps you become more compassionate. It is like a daily priming of the system.
rayiner 13y ago
> A number of “mindfulness” training programs, like that developed by the engineer Chade-Meng Tan at Google, and conferences like Wisdom 2.0 for business and tech leaders, promise attendees insight into how meditation can be used to augment individual performance, leadership and productivity. Management fads rank right up there with parenting fads and diet fads in their ability to attract otherwise intelligent, and often highly intelligent, people to their inanity.
- lnanek2 13y ago
  Meditation has many studies supporting it, including imaging studies showing changes to the brain. Calling programs that teach it inane is just ignorant.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Note the long chain of causality from "studies showing change to the brain" to teaching meditation as a way to improve management.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    I have no feeling about meditation one way or another, but "imaging studies showing changes to the brain" does not seem relevant to anything, unless said changes to the brain have a compelling causal link to something. Having people do something and watching their brains light up is cool, but without taking it much further is hardly evidence of the efficacy of meditation one way or the other. After all, changes in my skin conductivity do not suggest that I'm being haunted by thetans.
  - wozniacki 13y ago
    Is there a single major study involving a randomized controlled trial that strongly suggests that long term meditation indubitably aids in a certain function of humans? For the sake of clarity, a major study is designed like this: Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of colorectal cancer: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, a randomized controlled trial conducted in 48,835 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years recruited between 1993 and 1998 from 40 clinical centers throughout the United States. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467233 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467233
tinbad 13y ago
Great to see that enlightenment in the form of meditation is getting attention from the main stream media. We are getting caught up in our daily routines so much that we often forget who we are and what it is that actually makes us happy. Meditation, even when done for a short period of time, can truly change ones perception and bring in more happiness into ones life. Taking meditation into a business perspective, I believe it can truly enhance teams and have people work together better. At my previous company, one of our developers introduced me to meditation for the first time. I enjoyed it so much that I've asked him to 'lead' a collective meditation session every morning in the office for all the employees who were 'open' to it. After a few weeks most of our team participated in these sessions and the feedback from our employees was very positive. Now I have never tried to find a correlation of these sessions with actual productivity, but overall everybody seemed to be more focussed and happy in the office. If I ever get to found another company, I would definitely like to explore the options of team/office meditation sessions again. For anybody interested in connecting with the inner self, Eckhart Tolle really knows how to translate the concepts of our inner spirit into plain language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE1dWwoJPU0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE1dWwoJPU0
neves 13y ago
Nice article, but it looks like a simple case of reciprocity: "Hey, the people here just gave me an 8 week meditation course. The guys here are really nice. I should also be nice to everybody here".

56 points by sethbannon 13y ago

seren 13y ago

It is not clear from the article how the empathy level of all participants was assessed before the beginning of the experiment. From what I read, it could have been random luck that people with more empathy were selected to follow the meditation training. What I am missing there ?

jilebedev 13y ago
Moreover, would the meditation participants behave compassionately in other situations? A waiting room forms an implicit assumption that the present humans will have further interaction. What of compassion shown to stranger where the subject can be reasonably expected to assume a lack of interaction after the place? Still further: what of the gender bias? A forty person study seems hardly likely to account for the gender bias inherent in compassionate activities. I would suspect that a male would be more inclined to give up his seat to an attractive female than any other, even regardless of the circumstances (broken foot, lack of chairs, etc.) This "study" warrants some careful reading.
csbrooks 13y ago
I'm not a scientist, but doesn't a large enough sample-size greatly limit the chance of this, statistically?
- pekk 13y ago
  Making a sample larger cannot correct for nonrandom biases in who you sampled.
  - mjb 13y ago
    "We then randomly assigned 20 of them to take part in weekly meditation classes" It makes sense to be critical of bad experiment design, and skeptical about extraordinary results. On the other hand, claiming bad experiment design based on the amount of data presented in the article seems premature. Maybe wait for the full paper and criticize the methodology if it appears flawed.
    - jessriedel 13y ago
      > Maybe wait for the full paper and criticize the methodology if it appears flawed. Eh, if the authors and their university are going to promote this in the media--and, make no mistake, this has been promoted heavily in order for it to reach the NYTimes--then I think it's fair game. You don't get to publicize your claims on the national stage and then avoid criticism until after your paper is published and the reader has forgotten everything (except the vague impression that meditation is backed by science).
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    That's not what seren was suggesting: > it could have been random luck that people with more empathy were selected to follow the meditation training.
justinhj 13y ago
Assessing empathy would be inaccurate and subjective. The act of assessment may bias the final result. The random selection into two groups should do better than that, assuming the sample size is statistically significant. This experiment can simply be repeated to build more confidence in the result.
reddit_clone 13y ago
There is at least one more aspect to this , other than lack of empathy, I can think of. Some people (ahem) are pathologically shy. Getting up in front of all those people and offering the seat to the injured person can be a physically painful act since it draws so much attention.

Tomino 13y ago

I cannot believe that people are actually paid and getting popular on base of this kind of experiments. I mean, unless I am missing some crucial point, the results are just some random numbers that can point out only the fact that not many people have manners to give up seat for whoever needs it. And even that statistic is useless as it would have to be performed on many more people in order to have some solid ground. I wish I would have gone study psychology really. Lot of money and exposure for something that could be performed by primary school pupils...

dschiptsov 13y ago
Yeah, they caught something statistically, and then interpret that something according to their grossly oversimplified assumptions, while there are lots of overlooked or plainly ignored factors. It is a big question whether or not a primitive statistical methods are applicable to such vastly complex system as brain, given that no one could trace the causes of this or that manifested behavior, any other way but popular Freudian memes.
rattray 13y ago
You could say the same thing about most people who make money and achieve some level of fame -- especially artists, designers, many entrepreneurs, and entertainers (including sports stars). Many times, terrific results seem like they could have been "easy" to come up with. That doesn't take away from the fact that they had the creativity to think of it, did it, and added to our collective knowledge as a result. Sure, the results seem obvious in retrospect, and the process doesn't seem too tough to put together. But I'm grateful for their work nonetheless.
- 1337biz 13y ago
  But those do usually not slap the "science" label on their result/products. You would most likely laugh in a similar fashion at some guy who's product works well for 10 out of 20 random clients and now goes around telling the world that he has scientific evidence that his product is the only product that got it right. The social world is complex and anyone pretending things can be explained by a simple cause-effect relationship is just a charlatan.

dschiptsov 13y ago

"MEDITATION is fast becoming a fashionable tool for improving your mind." - Oh, RLY?! LOL! WUT. As for rest of the nonsense, any more or less authoritative teacher will tell you that it requires years of deliberate practice to attain very basic level of being continuously aware and in control of ones inner states. It is not mere sitting and counting one's breath. This is just a training drill for the very first realization, that thoughts are not continuous, that there is a gaps between them, and that the thought could be stopped, but not by self-denial or will, but naturally ceased, like an unnecessary tension. This is just a realization (the most important one) but one cannot stop ones mind without forcing oneself, and even that only for a few seconds. This is NOT the goal of meditation. It is only the very first step. But the next step - from this very first realization to developing a habit of being self-aware continuously, without any conscious effort requires years of practice. Different schools and branches has different techniques to practice daily in order to develop this habit of permanent self-awareness with in pop-culture is called the third eye (which looks inside). Practices which are based on body/breath control to change the state of the mind usually called yoga, at least in Tibetan or Indian tradition, but there are many so-called analytic meditation techniques, such as famous Tibetan meditation on a corpse (to realize the true nature of our body) and so on. So, please, cut that 8-week-course crap out. What they "measured" is elevated self-esteem, or better self-confidence, or just felling special or even enlightened - any kind of these naive pre-mature "experiences" each and any novice had had. It takes years of daily practice, as any other talent development.

mjb 13y ago
> So, please, cut that 8-week-course crap out. What they "measured" is elevated self-esteem, or better self-confidence, or just felling special or even enlightened - any kind of these naive pre-mature "experiences" each and any novice had had. If a novice can improve themselves in only 8 weeks, that doesn't seem to imply that only practicing for 8 weeks is "crap". Rather, it seems to imply that an 8 week course may be truly valuable. It takes a great deal of daily practice to master chess, but even a few hours of instruction and the occasional game provides many people with pleasure, a chance for social interaction, and practice in careful thought. You don't need to truly master something for its practice to have value. > any more or less authoritative teacher will tell you that it requires years of deliberate practice to attain very basic level of being continuously aware and in control of ones inner states Perhaps that is true, but the article says that there are other benefits. On the other hand, it's important to beware of any teacher that tells you that you need years of (paid) instruction to get any benefit from something.

300bps 13y ago

>WHEN a participant entered the waiting area for our lab, he (or she) found three chairs, two of which were already occupied. Naturally, he sat in the remaining chair. As he waited, a fourth person, using crutches and wearing a boot for a broken foot, entered the room and audibly sighed in pain as she leaned uncomfortably against a wall. ...and the results: >Although only 16 percent of the nonmeditators gave up their seats — an admittedly disheartening fact — the proportion rose to 50 percent among those who had meditated. So they had 39 people total. 20 meditators and 19 non-meditators. Of that, 3 non-meditators of 19 gave up their seat and 10 meditators of 20 gave up their seat. Did they perform this study on sociopaths? I find it incredible that any able-bodied person would not give up a chair to a person on crutches.

loginalready 13y ago
Methinks this is not about morality or (the lack of) compassion, but being more aware of your environment, i.e. mindfulness. I would suggests the other people simply weren't consciously aware enough to notice, but would have gladly given up their seat if someone else pointed it out to them.
- hosh 13y ago
  I remember reading another story where, they observed people being immersed in compassion or at least, being considerate. The experimenters then told the experimental subjects they needed to hurry to another building. Along the way, they passed someone who needed help in some way. Generally, even though the people were pumped, the ones who were told to hurry were more likely to ignore the person who needed help. I don't think it is fruitful to try to scientifically evaluate morality. Morality from my own practice, naturally arises from awareness of [i]self[/i] as well as environment. What the professor said about meditation fostering perception of interconnectedness syncs up with my own experiences of this practice.
davorak 13y ago
> Did they perform this study on sociopaths? I find it incredible that any able-bodied person would not give up a chair to a person on crutches. How will you correct your expectations given the results of the study? It is possible they hired a bad actor for the person with the crutches and therefore did not trigger the same response as if the person was actually in pain.

Alex3917 13y ago

> My favored explanation, though, derives from a different aspect of meditation: its ability to foster a view that all beings are interconnected. What a load of crap. There is no way you'd experience that after meditating once a week for eight weeks.

rattray 13y ago
Have you ever meditated?
- delluminatus 13y ago
  I have meditated daily for months and never experienced any sense of interconnectedness. Have you ever meditated?
- Alex3917 13y ago
  I've got one 10-day vipassana retreat under my belt. But I've also read enough to know that the 'feeling of interconnectedness' the author is describing is associated with states that take several years of serious practice to achieve.
jshen 13y ago
Why not?
lnanek2 13y ago
You could get the same effect as seen in the study just by priming the participants with compassionate readings vs. violent readings right before the test situation. Psychology studies do this all the time with mental behavior. That's a difference in thirty minutes, so eight weeks is way more than that.

dbpokorny 13y ago

I found this video on meditation to be direct, unapologetic, enlightening, and inspiring (12:16) "When you make use of the Dharma, this is not Dharma anymore" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvmgpyVcYJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvmgpyVcYJc I hope you enjoy :)

mchusma 13y ago

I found this to be a great example of the flaws with "evidence based" reporting rather than "science based" Science would suggest that this result is preliminary, and results should be studied with Bayesian statistics. This article makes headlines, sure, but shouldn't on its own dictate any behavior. PS. I found the false dichotomy between things like "moving for a person with crutches" and "being good at your job" annoying. This was likely more a product of reporting than the study though.

rattray 13y ago
It seems more like the difference between "reporting" and "science" to me. If you're interested in the science, consider reading the linked research paper instead[0]. It may adopt something closer to the tone you're looking for. FWIW, I agree that Bayesian statistics strikes me as regrettably underused in modern social science. But it's my impression that scientists of many stripes continue to use classical statistics instead, so calling something that doesn't use Bayes "not science" seems a bit off. [0] http://www.socialemotions.org/page5/files/Condon.etal.2013.pdf http://www.socialemotions.org/page5/files/Condon.etal.2013.p...
hosh 13y ago
The article made no pretense at being journalistic reporting. It's published in the Op-Ed section, after all.

d23 13y ago

Prediction: this comments section will be filled with people claiming this is a load of hogwash (and I can already see it happening). My response: do the results really seem that crazy? To me, it seems as obvious as comparing two groups of exercisers and non-exercisers to see who are about to last longer on a treadmill. If you practice something enough, you're going to see benefits. Practicing getting past those negative elements of your psyche for 8 weeks is surely going to cause you to be a bit kinder to those around you.

msluyter 13y ago

An alternative explanation: a group of people were selected to participate in meditation training. This heightened their awareness of the supposed benefits/effects of meditation as well as its historical traditions. Perhaps some of them read a bit about Buddhism and compassion, or were freshly reminded of such things. This primed them to think of themselves as being more aware, compassionate, etc... and that self image would be in the foreground, since they'd just started meditation so recently. Hence, perhaps when they found themselves in a social situation that called for such things, their enhanced self image was able to override the bystander effect. IOW: "I've been meditating lately and meditation is supposed to make you a nicer person, so I should do something!" This would be in accord with lots of studies that show how you prime someone's thinking can affect how they behave. You could test the above hypothesis by studying people who weren't recently introduced to meditation, that is, whose self image had some time to return to some sort of base state. The trick would be to disentangle the actual effects of the meditative process from the aura of associations surrounding Buddhism in particular, and that might be impossible. To clarify my question: is it the meditation itself that makes you more compassionate, or the engaging in a practice long associated with compassion that makes you more compassionate?

lcedp 13y ago
In meditation books it's often said one who wants to start meditating should have intention to become a better person otherwise it would make no sense. So to answer you question, I take a guess, it's conscious effort + meditation as a tool to keep you focused on your said goal by lowering anxiety.
eshvk 13y ago
I am personally incredibly skeptical of eastern religious practices so getting in mindfulness was a big step for me. So the way mindfulness works, it definitely forces you to become more aware of the world. Self-compassion is a big component of the mindfulness process (it is very hard to sit quietly for X minutes without having to calm your own judgmental thoughts). I don't' think there is a long term biological effect in me. If I stop meditating for a few days, I can feel myself coming back to a base state. However, as I keep doing this, it gets much better. So yes I think the very act of regular meditation helps you become more compassionate. It is like a daily priming of the system.

rayiner 13y ago

> A number of “mindfulness” training programs, like that developed by the engineer Chade-Meng Tan at Google, and conferences like Wisdom 2.0 for business and tech leaders, promise attendees insight into how meditation can be used to augment individual performance, leadership and productivity. Management fads rank right up there with parenting fads and diet fads in their ability to attract otherwise intelligent, and often highly intelligent, people to their inanity.

lnanek2 13y ago
Meditation has many studies supporting it, including imaging studies showing changes to the brain. Calling programs that teach it inane is just ignorant.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Note the long chain of causality from "studies showing change to the brain" to teaching meditation as a way to improve management.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  I have no feeling about meditation one way or another, but "imaging studies showing changes to the brain" does not seem relevant to anything, unless said changes to the brain have a compelling causal link to something. Having people do something and watching their brains light up is cool, but without taking it much further is hardly evidence of the efficacy of meditation one way or the other. After all, changes in my skin conductivity do not suggest that I'm being haunted by thetans.
- wozniacki 13y ago
  Is there a single major study involving a randomized controlled trial that strongly suggests that long term meditation indubitably aids in a certain function of humans? For the sake of clarity, a major study is designed like this: Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of colorectal cancer: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, a randomized controlled trial conducted in 48,835 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years recruited between 1993 and 1998 from 40 clinical centers throughout the United States. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467233 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467233

tinbad 13y ago

Great to see that enlightenment in the form of meditation is getting attention from the main stream media. We are getting caught up in our daily routines so much that we often forget who we are and what it is that actually makes us happy. Meditation, even when done for a short period of time, can truly change ones perception and bring in more happiness into ones life. Taking meditation into a business perspective, I believe it can truly enhance teams and have people work together better. At my previous company, one of our developers introduced me to meditation for the first time. I enjoyed it so much that I've asked him to 'lead' a collective meditation session every morning in the office for all the employees who were 'open' to it. After a few weeks most of our team participated in these sessions and the feedback from our employees was very positive. Now I have never tried to find a correlation of these sessions with actual productivity, but overall everybody seemed to be more focussed and happy in the office. If I ever get to found another company, I would definitely like to explore the options of team/office meditation sessions again. For anybody interested in connecting with the inner self, Eckhart Tolle really knows how to translate the concepts of our inner spirit into plain language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE1dWwoJPU0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE1dWwoJPU0

neves 13y ago

Nice article, but it looks like a simple case of reciprocity: "Hey, the people here just gave me an 8 week meditation course. The guys here are really nice. I should also be nice to everybody here".