Psychological Bulletin
March 1, 2014
Peter Sedlmeier, Juliane Eberth, Marcus Schwarz
We are grateful to Orme-Johnson and Dillbeck (2014) for raising several potential methodological concerns they have with our meta-analysis of the psychological effects of meditation and for thereby providing us with the opportunity to clarify these points. Orme-Johnson and Dillbeck raised 4 points that they believed might have led to unfair treatment of studies that reported the effects of...
Psychological Bulletin
March 1, 2014
David W. Orme-Johnson, Michael C. Dillbeck
We commend Sedlmeier et al. (2012) for their significant undertaking of meta-analysis of all meditation types on all psychological variables, but additional analyses may modify some of their conclusions. Whereas they suggest from visual inspection of funnel diagrams that there may be publication bias of underreporting low-effect studies on the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique,...
Psychological Bulletin
May 14, 2012
Peter Sedlmeier, Juliane Eberth, Marcus Schwarz et al.
910 citations
In this meta-analysis, we give a comprehensive overview of the effects of meditation on psychological variables that can be extracted from empirical studies, concentrating on the effects of meditation on nonclinical groups of adult meditators. Mostly because of methodological problems, almost ¾ of an initially identified 595 studies had to be excluded. Most studies appear to have been conducted...
Psychological Bulletin
March 1, 2011
Jonathan W. Schooler
Fox, Ericsson, and Best's (2011) thoughtful justification of the use of think-aloud protocols for revealing the stream of consciousness comes on the centennial of the death of William James, history's greatest practitioner and advocate of introspection. This confluence naturally invites speculation about how James might have responded to the analysis of Fox et al. I suggest that although James...
Psychological Bulletin
March 1, 2010
Jonathan Smallwood
173 citations
When the mind wanders, conscious thoughts come to mind that are only loosely related to the task being performed. This phenomenon produces tension within the cognitive sciences because the interfering nature of these thoughts is at odds with the assumption that such processes are functional in daily life. In their comment, McVay and Kane (2010) suggested that failures in executive control can...
Psychological Bulletin
2005
Dieter Vaitl, Niels Birbaumer, John Gruzelier et al.
446 citations
The article reviews the current knowledge regarding altered states of consciousness (ASC) (a) occurring spontaneously, (b) evoked by physical and physiological stimulation, (c) induced by psychological means, and (d) caused by diseases. The emphasis is laid on psychological and neurobiological approaches. The phenomenological analysis of the multiple ASC resulted in 4 dimensions by which they...
Psychological Bulletin
1975
J. Cole Smith
105 citations
It has been widely argued that meditation has psychotherapeutic potential. Research on meditation has yielded 3 sets of findings: (a) experienced meditators who are willing to participate without pay in meditation research appear happier and healthier than nonmeditators; (b) beginning meditators who