Reducing defensive responses to thoughts of death: Meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhism.
Young Chin Park, Tom Pyszczynski
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology August 24, 2017 DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000163 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Quasi-experimental and randomized experiments (three studies) Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | South Korean participants with varying Buddhism and meditation experience (Studies 1 and 2); American students without prior meditation experience (Study 3) |
| Intervention | Meditation |
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Keywords | Humans Attitude to death Defense mechanisms Middle aged Female Young adult Republic of korea |
| Key findings | Across three studies, mortality salience increased worldview defense and suppressed death-related thoughts among people without meditation experience, but these defensive effects were absent immediately after an initial meditation experience and among regular meditators and Buddhist monks. Death thought accessibility mediated the mortality salience effect on worldview defense without meditation, and meditation eliminated this mediation. |
Abstract
Three studies investigated the effects of meditation on responses to reminders of death. Study 1 took a quasi-experimental approach, comparing defensive responses to mortality salience (MS) of South Korean participants with varying levels of experience with Buddhism and meditation. Whereas non-Buddhists without meditation showed the typical increase in worldview defense after mortality salience (MS), this effect was not found among non-Buddhists immediately after an initial meditation experience, nor among lay Buddhists who meditated regularly or Buddhist monks with intensive meditation experience. Study 2, a fully randomized experiment, showed that MS increased worldview defense among South Koreans at a meditation training who were assessed before meditating but not among participants assessed after their first meditation experience. Study 3 showed that whereas American students without prior meditation experience showed increased worldview defense and suppression of death-related thoughts after MS, these effects were eliminated immediately after an initial meditation experience. Death thought accessibility mediated the effect of MS on worldview defense without meditation, but meditation eliminated this mediation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
Comparable studies
Other randomized controlled trials on buddhism, most cited first.
Citations in the library
Cited by 19
- Relationships between Religious and Scientific Worldviews in the Narratives of Western Buddhists Reporting Meditation-Related Challenges Journal of Contemplative Studies July 23, 2025
- Training the embodied self in its impermanence: meditators evidence neurophysiological markers of death acceptance. Neuroscience of Consciousness 2025
- HIV Patients' Mindfulness Moderates How Death Anxiety and Depression Impact Life Quality. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying December 18, 2024
- Mindfulness enhancements predict aberrant salience reductions and improve stress management. Discover Mental Health April 8, 2025
- Mindfulness meditators’ brains show an acceptance of death which predicts positively-valenced meditative self-dissolution experiences PsyArXiv August 21, 2023
and 14 more in the library
Cites 19
- Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2003
- Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences October 11, 2007
- The toronto mindfulness scale: Development and validation Journal of Clinical Psychology 2006
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Health Care Professionals: Results From a Randomized Trial. International Journal of Stress Management May 1, 2005
- The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin May 14, 2012
and 14 more in the library