Personality correlates of meditation practice frequency and dropout in an outpatient population.
Journal of Behavioral Medicine December 1, 1988 DOI: 10.1007/bf00844908 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Prospective observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Outpatients referred for relaxation therapy |
| Intervention | relaxation therapy |
| Duration | 2-year follow-up; assessments at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Humans Ambulatory care Patient compliance Personality tests Adult Patient dropouts Female Relaxation therapy |
| Key findings | Short-term (3-month) meditation compliance was related to low pretest sensitization, introversion, suggestibility, and neuroticism, while long-term (6- to 24-month) compliance was related only to repression and extraversion. By two years, roughly 54% of patients had stopped meditating altogether. |
Abstract
A prospective study was conducted to determine personality trait correlates of regularity of meditation practice and dropout over a 2-year follow-up period in outpatients referred for relaxation therapy. Patients were supervised on a monthly basis and classified as regular vs. irregular practitioners or dropouts at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months after they began meditating on a daily basis. Short-term (3-month) compliance was related to low levels of pretest sensitization, introversion, suggestibility, and neuroticism. Long-term (6- to 24-month) compliance was related only to repression and extraversion. By the end of 2 years, roughly half (54%) of the patients had terminated meditation altogether.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Undergraduate students | 2006 | Observational cohort | |
| Effectiveness of a meditation-based stress reduction program in the treatment of anxiety disorders Patients with generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder with or without agoraphobia | 1992 | Observational cohort | n = 22 |
| Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness Participants with extensive Insight meditation experience and matched controls | 2005 | Observational cohort | n = 20 |
| Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity Experienced meditators and matched meditation-naive controls | 2011 | Observational cohort | |
| Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice Long-term Buddhist practitioners and controls | 2004 | Observational cohort |
Citations in the library
Cited by 12
- Intensive meditation training, immune cell telomerase activity, and psychological mediators. Psychoneuroendocrinology June 1, 2011
- Mental Training as a Tool in the Neuroscientific Study of Brain and Cognitive Plasticity Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2011
- A pilot study: mindfulness meditation intervention in COPD International Journal of COPD March 1, 2015
- Engagement With Meditation Apps: Cross-Sectional Survey of Use and Associations. Journal of Medical Internet Research February 2, 2026
- Individual differences in meditation interventions: A meta‐analytic study British Journal of Health Psychology February 27, 2022
and 7 more in the library