Meditation attenuates the ownership-identification link: a mechanism for decentering in self-referential processing.
Lorena Arahuete, M Calvente, Daniel Pinazo
The Journal of general psychology November 4, 2026 DOI: 10.1080/00221309.2026.2751724 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study (two studies; Study 2 used priming manipulation) Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 520 |
| Population | Study 1: 340 participants; Study 2: 180 participants (general adult samples, details not specified in abstract) |
| Interventions | Mindfulness meditation Pronoun-based priming |
| Duration | 20-minute mindfulness meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Emotional valuation Metacognition Psychological ownership Self-identification |
| Key findings | Emotionally valued experiences were more strongly appraised as psychologically owned, and ownership increased identification with mental content, consistent with cognitive fusion. A 20-minute mindfulness meditation did not reduce emotional valuation but attenuated the functional relation between ownership and self-identification. The authors argue this supports a contextual account in which mindfulness promotes defusion by weakening ownership-based relational networks underlying "selfing." |
Abstract
Mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches propose that psychological suffering is maintained by cognitive fusion, in which individuals become entangled with the content of their private events. The present research examined psychological ownership as a contextual mechanism linking emotional valuation to self-referential responding and tested whether brief mindfulness practice alters this functional relation. Across two studies, we investigated whether emotionally salient experiences are more likely to be experienced as "mine," thereby increasing identification with mental events, and whether mindfulness disrupts this process without reducing emotional valuation. In Study 1 (N = 340), emotionally valued experiences were more strongly appraised as psychologically owned, suggesting that emotional salience functions as a contextual cue for ownership of private events. In Study 2 (N = 180), psychological ownership was experimentally manipulated using pronoun-based priming before and after a 20-minute mindfulness meditation. Results indicated that ownership increased identification with mental content, consistent with cognitive fusion processes. Importantly, mindfulness did not reduce emotional valuation but attenuated the functional relation between ownership and self-identification, suggesting reduced self-referential control by emotionally salient private events. These findings support a contextual account in which mindfulness promotes defusion by weakening ownership-based relational networks underpinning selfing.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Cancer patients (clinical intervention study) | 2003 | Mixed methods: scale development, correlational, quasi-experimental, laboratory, experience-sampling, and clinical intervention study | |
| Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. | 2008 | Controlled laboratory experiment | |
| Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. | 2012 | Two studies: correlational study and experimental study | |
| Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence | 2009 | Experimental study | |
| Mindfulness meditation and substance use in an incarcerated population. Incarcerated population | 2006 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual control condition |
Citations in the library
Cites 11
- The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003
- Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012
- Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training Mindfulness August 18, 2016
- Pattern Theory of Selflessness: How Meditation May Transform the Self-Pattern Mindfulness August 1, 2024
- The 'Self' Aspects: the Sense of the Existence, Identification, and Location. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science September 1, 2019
and 6 more in the library