Self‑transcendence in rituals and awe experiences tends to promote social bonding, particularly if these events involve synchronous movement. Here we suggest that the blurring of self-other boundaries, as a cognitive-perceptual mechanism underlying self-transcendence, may increase perceived self-other overlap, which in turn may lead to greater social connection, together with awe. Building on...
Background: The academic development and widespread adoption of meditation practices for well-being and therapy have predominantly focused on secularised adaptations of Buddhist and Hindu techniques. This study aims to expand the field by investigating Christian and Islamic meditation that emphasize the spiritual significance of the heart through elements of visualisation and recitation. It...
Conflicting findings have emerged from research on the relationship between thinking styles and supernatural beliefs. In two studies, we examined this relationship through meta-cognitive trust and developed a new: (1) experimental manipulation, a short scientific article describing the benefits of thinking styles: (2) trust in thinking styles measure, the Ambiguous Decisions task; and (3)...
Objectives: The beliefs and expectations people bring into mindfulness practice can affect the measurement outcomes of interventions. The aim of this mixed-method study was to examine the key beliefs in the powers of mindfulness-understood as non-judgmental awareness of the present moment-to transform the individual and the society, and to develop and validate the Belief in the Powers of...
This study was the first to test the feasibility of mind-body interventions with a randomised control research design in a sample that contains all ten types of personality disorders, and the first to provide a preliminary evaluation of responses using a combination of psychological, genomic, neural, and behavioural measures. Thirty prisoners with personality disorders were recruited within a...
The use of mindfulness meditation as a well-being and clinical tool is being deeply challenged on various fronts. The recent failure of showing its salutary effects on schoolchildren, in a large-scale study, which stands as the most expensive study in the history of meditation science (£6.4 million), is accompanied by growing evidence of potential adverse effects associated with mindfulness...
Objectives Meditation interventions typically show small to moderate effects on health and well‐being, but we know little about how these effects vary across individuals. This meta‐analytic study investigates the relationship between baseline participant characteristics and the outcomes of meditation. Methods A systematic search yielded 51 eligible studies with 7782 participants. A combination...
October 7, 2021Valerie van Mulukom, Armin W. Geertz, Robert W. Clark et al.2 citations
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In this chapter, we explore parallels between art and religion through culture and symbolic systems, drawing from past sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and current cognitive research. We argue that the creation of the arts and religion – as particularly important human cultural phenomena – allowed for subjective knowledge to become represented in symbols and artefacts, the latter...
Meditation techniques are widely used as therapy and wellbeing practices, but there are growing concerns about its potential for harm. The aim of the present study is to systematically review meditation adverse events (MAEs), investigating its major clinical categories and its prevalence.
Many individuals believe that meditation has the capacity to not only alleviate mental-illness but to improve prosociality. This article systematically reviewed and meta-analysed the effects of meditation interventions on prosociality in randomized controlled trials of healthy adults. Five types of social behaviours were identified: compassion, empathy, aggression, connectedness and prejudice....
There is considerable evidence for the effectiveness of mind-body interventions (MBIs) in improving mental and physical health, but the molecular mechanisms of these benefits remain poorly understood. One hypothesis is that MBIs reverse expression of genes involved in inflammatory reactions that are induced by stress. This systematic review was conducted to examine changes in gene expression...
It is unclear why some individuals reporting psychotic experiences have balanced lives while others go on to develop mental health problems. The objective of this study was to test if the personality traits of harm avoidance, self-directedness, and self-transcendence can be used as criteria to differentiate healthy from unhealthy schizotypal individuals. We interviewed 115 participants who...
The excitement about the application of mindfulness meditation in mental health settings has led to the proliferation of a literature pervaded by a lack of conceptual and methodological self-criticism. In this article we raise two major concerns. First, we consider the range of individual differences within the experience of meditation; although some people may benefit from its practice, others...