Meditation, Positive Emotions and Well-Being
Nov 14th, 2008 | By Mark T | Category: Science of Peace
New psychological research demonstrates the benefits of loving-kindness meditation (LKM) on increasing positive emotions, personal resources and well-being. Specifically, this research sought to provide empirical support for the “broaden and build” theory of positive emotions. The theory contends that the experience of positive emotions temporarily broadens peoples attention and consciousness, enabling them to make higher level connections and access a wider range of ideas. This “broadening” can lead to the “building” of cognitive, psychological, social and physical resources which enable persons to engage in life more effectively, experience more happiness, better health and increased well-being down the road. From this perspective, positive emotions don’t just feel good in the present moment, but they accumulate, creating opportunities to expand personal resources and potentially increase well-being. The study sought to directly test the “broaden and build” theory by seeing if people change (increased positive emotions→ increased personal resources → increased well-being) as a result of loving-kindness meditation.
This hypothesis is particularly interesting because of something called the “hedonic treadmill” effect; the belief (backed up empirically) that inducing positive emotions increases ones level of happiness temporarily, but that these increases soon fall away as people settle into set-point levels of positive emotionality. This begs the question; is ones level of happiness inevitable and unchanging?
In an attempt to answer this question, the researchers employed a longitudinal design that captured the potential for positive emotions to accumulate and add up to changes in personal resources and well-being, as suggested by the theory. Over the course of ten weeks a group of employees at a computer company were placed into one of two conditions; an experiemental condition which included an eight week training in loving-kindness meditation (participants received a training and meditation instruction once a week and were encouraged to meditate on their own at home), and a control condition in which participants were placed on a wait list to receive the training at a latter date. As the researchers hypothesized, LKG meditation contributed to increased positive emotions over time, which in turn increased personal resources and resulted in greater and lasting well-being. This research provides evidence for what spiritual traditions have known for centuries, namely that you can change, you can reduce your suffering and you can increase your well-being through meditation. Future research will have to investigate how long these increases in well-being last, and how they correspond to maintaining a meditation practice.
Fredrickson, Barbara L.; Cohn, Michael A.; Coffey, Kimberly A.; Pek, Jolynn; Finkel, Sandra M. 2008. Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 95, 1045-1062.