Mindfulness meditation is a stress-management practice with an ancient lineage that cultivates nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, often by directing attention to the physical sensations of breathing.
In a new study from the University of Washington, researchers found there may be an unanticipated downside to secular mindfulness meditation practices.
This is because meditating can reduce feelings of guilt, thus limiting reactions like generosity that are important to human relationships.
When people feel guilty, it tends to make them focus outward, on other people, which can promote reparative actions.
In the study, the researchers conducted eight experiments with more than 1,400 participants in the U.S. and Portugal.
They demonstrated that mindfulness does reduce feelings of guilt. Participants were randomly assigned to either write about a past situation that made them feel guilty or write about their previous day.
Then, they listened to either an eight-minute guided mindfulness meditation recording that instructed them to focus on the physical sensations of breathing or an eight-minute control condition recording in which they were instructed to let their minds wander.
Participants who listened to the mindfulness recording reported feeling less guilt compared to those in the mind-wandering control group. This was true whether they had written about a guilty situation or their previous day.
The team then ran six other experiments to test whether mindfulness meditation would influence prosocial reparative behaviors, like making up with a friend after doing something that caused harm.
The psychological process behind these allocation differences was reduced guilt.
These and three other, similar experiments established that mindfulness meditation reduces the tendency to make amends for harming others.
This research serves as a caution to people who might be tempted to use mindfulness meditation to reduce emotions that are unpleasant, but necessary to support moral thoughts and behavior.
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The study is published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and was conducted by Andrew Hafenbrack et al.
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