Loving-Kindness Mediation Will Make You Happier Than Compassion Meditation
Researchers from HSE University compared the effect of two meditation practices – loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM). Loving-kindness meditation turned out to be more effective when it comes to increasing happiness, but, in contrast with previous studies, compassion meditation also did not result in a growth of negative emotions. The paper was published in Mindfulness journal.
Meditation has long become a routine for many people, particularly in the US and Western Europe. It is used to restore energy, decrease stress, and find inspiration. Different types of meditation have different effects. Researchers are increasingly interested in these hardly measurable but nevertheless important differences in the impact that meditation practices have on people’s emotional state.
In Buddhism, there is a group of practices called the ‘four immeasurable meditations’. It includes loving-kindness meditation, compassion meditation, appreciative joy meditation, and equanimity meditation. While they differ from each other and can be used separately, they are all aimed at forming positive messages to others and oneself.
Judging by their names, loving-kindness meditation and compassion meditation may seem similar, but they also have rooted theoretical differences. While LKM is about the meditator’s motivation to see others be happy, CM aims to alleviate the feeling of suffering.
The researchers sought to answer the question as to whether the outcomes of the two practices differ and what emotions they cause. They recommended that volunteers practice one of the meditations: the first group practiced LKM, and the second practiced CM. Each of the participants received a 15-min audio with the meditation practice instructions. The third, control, group, solved a crossword puzzle. Before and after the experiment, the participants completed a questionnaire, where they evaluated the emotions they were experiencing. A total of 201 American students participated in the experiment; none of them had practiced meditation before.
The study showed that the participants who practiced one of the meditations noticed a significant increase in happiness, as well as love and care for other people. LKM was more effective in increasing positive emotions and happiness.
‘The higher effectiveness of loving-kindness meditation may be a sign that this type of meditation is more suitable to newcomers – those who have never tried meditation before,’ said Ulyana Sirotina, one of the paper’s authors. ‘Compassion meditation is traditionally practiced after one has already mastered LKM.’
The researchers had assumed that CM would increase negative emotions, since the meditator is focused on suffering, but this did not happen. This conclusion contradicts an earlier study, where those practicing compassion experienced more sadness than before meditation. The researchers believe that the difference in the results may be due to differences in procedures: the instructions in the two experiments were different. While participants focused on compassion toward friends and strangers in the earlier study, this time they were also prompted to show self-compassion, which helped them deal with sadness. Self-compassion is likely a key factor responsible for positive emotions during CM, an assumption that could be evaluated in future studies.
These conclusions gave the researchers a deeper understanding of how strongly various meditation instructions may impact their emotional state. Since meditation is increasingly used by medical professionals and psychologists in clinical practice, such studies serve to enrich knowledge on the use of specific meditation approaches.
See also:
Psychologists Study Daydreaming in Russian Cultural Context
Researchers at HSE University, having examined the role of daydreaming in the Russian cultural context, conclude that constructive daydreaming can help people with gaining insight into their life's trajectory, fostering personal growth, discovering existential meaning, enhancing psychological wellbeing, and cultivating a balanced temporal perspective. The study findings have been published in Cultural-Historical Psychology.
Workaholism Helps Young Narcissists Boost New Venture Performance
An international team of researchers including Professor Galina Shirokova, Director of the Strategic Entrepreneurship Centre at HSE University in St Petersburg, and her students Nailya Galieva and Diana Doktorova, examined the impact of narcissism on young entrepreneurs' success. The authors have demonstrated that a company founder's workaholism can amplify the influence of narcissism on a new venture's performance.
Plurilingualism Compensates for Low Extraversion in Nurturing Creative Skills
Researchers at the HSE Laboratory for Linguistic, Intercultural, and Creative Competencies have examined the role of the Big Five personality traits in moderating the development of creativity among individuals who use multiple languages and have intercultural experiences. It has been found that acquiring multiple languages and engaging with diverse cultures can enhance an individual's creativity and compensate for some deficiencies in communicative abilities. That said, language practices are likely to foster creativity only in mentally stable individuals. The paper has been published in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.
Attainment of Happiness in Psychologically Mature Individuals Linked to Pursuit of Meaning
Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl believed that the quest for meaning constitutes a fundamental and intrinsic motivation for all human beings. Some other authors suggest that the need for meaning or purpose only emerges at higher levels of personality development. According to a team of psychologists from HSE and the University of Paris Nanterre, individuals who have achieved higher levels of ego development are inclined to relinquish hedonistic motives in favour of cultivating mindfulness and embarking on a quest for meaning. These findings have been published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Married Men Less Prone to Workplace Burnout
Greater marital satisfaction lowers the risk of professional burnout, with this correlation being more pronounced among men than women. This is a conclusion made by HSE psychologists after conducting a study on the effect of social interactions on workplace burnout on a sample of 203 employees from several Russian companies. According to the researchers, gaining a better understanding of the specific aspects of burnout experienced by individuals makes it possible to address this syndrome more effectively. The paper has been published in Organizational Psychology.
HSE Psychologists Propose New Approach to Building Soft Skills
Researchers at HSE's School of Psychology have used the findings of studies into creativity and multilingualism to develop 'Plurilingual Intercultural Creative Keys’ (PICK), a new programme which integrates both aspects into the teaching and learning process. The study results have been published in Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics.
Card File: Plurilingual Creativity
Fluency in foreign languages has multiple advantages in terms of cognitive abilities, communication skills, cultural awareness, and career advancement. But can bilingualism and plurilingualism (knowledge of multiple languages and related cultural contexts) contribute to creative thinking and one's ability to generate new ideas? Studies have shown that linguistic, intercultural and creative competencies are interrelated, and their synergy can give rise to plurilingual creativity. The following overview is based on several papers by Anatoly Kharkhurin, Director of the HSE Laboratory for Linguistic, Intercultural and Creative Competencies.
Readers Found to Rely on Word Spelling Rather Than Sound in Reading
Skilled readers are known to extract information not only from the word they are looking at but from the one directly following it. This phenomenon is called pre-processing. Researchers from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain analysed the eye movements of primary school children and adults during silent reading and found both groups to rely on orthographic, rather than phonological, information in pre-processing an upcoming word. The study has been published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Psychological Intervention Reduced Stress during COVID Lockdown
Resilience and well-being in difficult times can be developed via online interventions in the workplace. An international team of researchers from France, the UK, and Russia (with the participation of researchers from the HSE International Laboratory of Positive Psychology of Personality and Motivation) studied the effectiveness of SPARK Resilience, a programme for developing resilience, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the study were published in the PLOS One journal.
Light Breezes Improve Moods of Social Media Users
Sergey Smetanin, Research Fellow of the HSE Graduate School of Business, conducted a large-scale analysis to examine the impact of weather conditions on the sentiments expressed by users of the Odnoklassniki (OK) social network. The findings have been published in PeerJ Computer Science. This is the first study of its kind in Russia.