Zen meditation neutralizes emotional evaluation, but not implicit affective processing of words.
Larissa Lusnig, Ralph Radach, Christina J Mueller, Markus J. Hofmann
PLoS One 2020 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229310 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Controlled experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Adept Zen meditators and a comparison group |
| Intervention | Zen meditation |
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Key findings | Adept Zen meditators rated emotional valence of positive and negative nouns as more neutral after meditation, with no such change in the comparison group. |
Abstract
There is ample evidence that meditation can regulate emotions. It is questionable, however, whether meditation can down-regulate sensitivity to emotional experience in high-level cognitive representations such as words. The present study shows that adept Zen meditators rated the emotional valence of (low-arousal) positive and (high- and low-arousal) negative nouns significantly more neutral after a meditation session, while there was no change of valence ratings after a comparison intervention in the comparison group. Because the Zen group provided greater "openness to experience" and lower "need for achievement and performance" in the "Big Five" personality assessment, we used these scores as covariates for all analyses. We found no differential emotion effects of Zen meditation during lexical decision, but we replicated the slow-down of low-arousal negative words during lexical decision in both groups. Interestingly, Zen meditation elicited a global facilitation of all response times, which we discuss in terms of increased attentional resources after meditation.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| EEG Alpha Blocking Correlated with Perception of Inner Light During Zen Meditation Zen-Buddhist practitioners who had been practicing meditation for years | 2003 | Experimental study | |
| Zen meditation and ABC relaxation theory: An exploration of relaxation states, beliefs, dispositions, and motivations Experienced Zen meditators and college students | 2001 | Controlled experimental study | n = 83 |
| Exploring Emptiness and its Effects on Non-attachment, Mystical Experiences, and Psycho-spiritual Wellbeing: A Quantitative and Qualitative Study of Advanced Meditators. Advanced Buddhist meditators | 2019 | Within-subjects experimental design with qualitative analysis | n = 25 |
| Ready to help, no matter what you did: Responsibility attribution does not influence compassion in expert Buddhist practitioners. Expert Buddhist practitioners and trained novices | 2024 | Experimental study | |
| ZEN MEDITATION AND TIME-EXPERIENCE | 1989 | Experimental study |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- Mindfulness, cognition, and long-term meditators: Toward a science of advanced meditation. Imaging Neuroscience 2025
- Mindful Text Comprehension: Meditation Training Improves Reading Comprehension of Meditation Novices Mindfulness January 30, 2023
- Meditation affects word recognition of meditation novices Psychological Research April 1, 2022
Cites 16
- Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being JAMA Internal Medicine January 6, 2014
- Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences October 11, 2007
- Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 28, 2007
- Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources PLoS Biology May 4, 2007
- Mindfulness‐based approaches: are they all the same? Journal of Clinical Psychology January 19, 2011
and 11 more in the library