Reducing defensive responses to thoughts of death: Meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhism.

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

Reconsidering Terror Management Theory in Japan

“…Buddhists practice meditation, which promotes a state of mindfulness characterized by observing one's thoughts without judgment. This practice diminishes defensive responses to thoughts of death (Park & Pyszczynski, 2019), and may explain our results. Like much of what has been discussed in this section, this subject should be taken up and examined in future research.…”

Emotional responses to mortality salience: Behavioral and ERPs evidence

“…Terror management theory posits a dual-process model, proximal defense and distal defense in response to death-related thoughts [5]. When thoughts of death are induced, conscious concerns about death are first experienced.…”

Apakah saliensi mortalitas berperan dalam menjelaskan prasangka terhadap pasangan antarbudaya? Sebuah studi eksperimental

“…Pertama, menekankan pada aspek pandangan dunia kultural yang mempromosikan nilai-nilai perdamaian (Greenberg, Landau, Kosloff, Soenke, & Solomon, 2016). Berbagai studi telah menunjukkan bahwa memanipulasi saliensi nilai religius (Rothschild dkk., 2009), nilai toleransi (Greenberg dkk., 1992), atau mindfulness (Park & Pyszczynski, 2019) dapat mengurangi reaksi defensif pasca paparan kematian. Mengingat reaksi defensif yang muncul setelah paparan kematian sangat dipengaruhi oleh aspek saliensi dari pandangan dunia kultural yang ada maka, dengan memanipulasi saliensi konten yang ada pada pandangan dunia kultural, prasangka yang muncul sebagai akibat upaya meredam kecemasan akan kematian dapat dikurangi.…”