Research assistance sought

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
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forestmat
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Re: Research assistance sought

Post by forestmat »

Done, sent, and agreed to follow-up.

Metta

forestmat
Hartridge Buddhist Monastery, Devon, England
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retrofuturist
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Re: Research assistance sought

Post by retrofuturist »

forestmat wrote:Done, sent, and agreed to follow-up.
Ditto.

Though I must admit I found it difficult to benchmark myself given that I don't have the ability to penetrate minds, nor remember past lives.... thus relying entirely on my own subjective experience.

Such is the limitation of such surveys I imagine.

When I was younger, I thought I was pretty good at Microsoft Excel... I knew how to do equations, absolute cell references, random numbers and so on.... then I find out there's things like VLOOKUP tables, links across spreadsheets, macros, conditional formatting, data validation and all manner of things... and then I decided that I didn't know diddly squat.

But did I actually know less than I did when I thought I was pretty good at Excel?

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
michael ireland
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Re: Research assistance sought

Post by michael ireland »

Hello friends
below is some more information on the research for those who are interested =)

To give you a very brief overview of the project: the broad aim is to provide empirical evidence to support the idea that meditation leads to increase in psychological health and happiness and a reduction in psychological suffering and distress. I take the point that some people have made that meditation doesn’t actually make you happier but more emotionally stable, greater equanimity or less actual emotional highs and lows. I agree with this however, it is clear that meditation is expected to reduce mental suffering and I believe that through this it is more likely that a person would be likely to report a great sense of overall happiness when compared with someone who doesn’t meditate. Additionally, I am looking at around 10 outcome variables in order to try get a clear picture of what beneficial effects are produced by meditation.
These outcome variables are happiness, compassion, resilience, wellbeing, life satisfaction, anxiety, depression, stress, self-actualization, and physical health.

This will be done in three stages:

Firstly, I am indexing mediation practice across four dimensions (frequency, intensity, duration, and proficiency) and assessing the degree of association between these and the psychological health outcome variables. Furthermore I am exploring the role of mindfulness (state and trait), transcendence, and insight as mediators of this relationship. This will be accomplished with structural equation modeling which will simultaneously test the fit of the overall model as well as strength of individual relationships.

Secondly, I will be comparing meditators with a control group of non-meditating subjects across these variables. These comparisons will statistically control for any existing differences between the groups on religiousness, personality variables, as well as socially disenable responding bias (answering so you look good). This stage will not only involve a comparison between meditators with non-meditators but also compare advanced meditators with novice meditators and with non-meditators as it is hypothesized that increased in psychological heath and wellbeing will be observed across these three groups.

Finally stage 3 involves testing change over time (over approximately 12 months) in meditators across these outcome variables. This is to test the hypothesis that if meditation practice is positively related to psychological health and wellbeing than as meditators practice over time we expect their scores on the outcome variables to improve over time (this effect is likely to be more evident for beginning meditators as for someone who has meditated fro 40 years may not experience a great deal of change over a single year).

So far I have been running preliminary analyses on the data and the results seem to be confirming what I expect.

At this stage, we only need a few more participants and we can proceed with data analysis so if anyone is interested please complete the survey or pass it onto a friend.

If you have any questions as always please do not hesitate to contact me

Take care

Michael
rowyourboat
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Re: Research assistance sought

Post by rowyourboat »

Hello Michael,

Thanks for that. Incidentally wanted to ask you how you feel this research differs from what has been done in this field before?

with metta

RYB
With Metta

Karuna
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michael ireland
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Re: Research assistance sought

Post by michael ireland »

rowyourboat wrote:Hello Michael,

Thanks for that. Incidentally wanted to ask you how you feel this research differs from what has been done in this field before?

with metta

RYB

Thank you for this question. I am more than happy to answer =)

The basis of this research (and basically any research) are the gaps and limitations in the literature to date.
Firstly, the absence of a clear and consistent definition of meditation has critically restricted prior research and the interpretation of results. Past research has either neglected to operationalise meditation practice into key measurable components, or has considered just one of these components in isolation (e.g., either length or frequency of practice). Conceptually, the term meditation in its typical use refers to an extremely wide range of practices (Lutz et al., 2007) and thus, it is difficult to make general conclusions about the effects or processes of meditation practice when specific techniques vary widely. However, to date, very little research has attempted to compare meditation practices to explore differential impacts on outcome variables. Therefore, one of the key strengths of the present research is the measurement of multiple components of meditation practice (including style or form of practice) and the investigation of each component’s unique role in predicting various outcome variables. As a behaviour, several basic behavioural measurements will be used to index meditation practice: frequency, intensity, proficiency, and duration as well as the nominal assessment of the participants’ style/form of meditation practice (Martin & Bateson, 1993). In exploring differences between the various styles/forms of practice, the current approach is to begin at the broadest level assuming meditation practices share certain core elements and then measure practice in purely behavioural terms, and finally, explore differences between different styles/forms of meditation and their relationship with predicted outcome variables as well as potential mediators.
Prior research has also tended to neglect the outcomes of meditation practice that are proposed by the contemplative teachings in which meditation practices have their origin; and this is particularly the case concerning positive outcomes. As a result, research has largely focused on the effect of meditation on negative psychological outcomes reflecting clinical symptomatology (i.e., anxiety and stress). This reflects a broader issue in meditation research in which researchers have attempted to remove meditation from its original contexts and traditions. As a result, the majority of research has not been guided by or established in theoretical formulations of mediation. Therefore, the philosophical bases of meditation have not been well linked with outcome measures and, thus, research to date has not been theory-driven and has consequently neglected important outcomes proposed by meditation teachings as central intended effects of practice. For example, outcomes such as happiness, life satisfaction, and personal maturity have not been investigated in prior research; and only one or two studies to date have included variables measuring emotional stability/equanimity and self-actualisation. The present research overcomes this by reviewing primary meditation teachings and recent theoretical formulations to determine intended effects and examining these as outcome variables.
In addition, almost no research to date has investigated potential mechanisms of the observed/proposed outcomes of meditation practice. Therefore, it is still unclear what processes are responsible for the proposed relationship between meditation practices and positive outcomes. The present research will overcome this limitation by examining the role of several theoretically derived variables in mediating the relationship between meditation practice and potential outcomes. To do this, structural equation modelling will be used to test mindfulness, transcendence, and insight as meditational mechanisms for the proposed outcomes.
Finally, in exploring effects of meditation, prior research has often compared a group of novel participants taught to practice a particular meditation technique over a limited time (often a period of weeks) with a comparison or control group. However, this approach has resulted in small sample sizes and, more importantly, does not represent an authentic or even optimum method of meditation training. In fact, many meditation techniques take months or even years of training to master and success is almost always achieved “through great effort” (The Upanishads: A New Translation, 1986, p. 84). Therefore, there may exist a long ‘learning period’ in meditation where the practice itself is mastered before any positive effects emerge (Compton & Becker, 1983). Furthermore, even if the technique can be mastered relatively quickly, there is little basis, if any, for expecting positive effects in the short term. In fact, there are almost no claims of short-term positive benefits anywhere in original meditation teachings and some teachings even warn newcomers to expect great difficulties when they begin meditation training (Ming Zhen Shakya, 2004). To overcome these limitations, the present research will seek to recruit a large sample of participants with established meditation practices from a variety of sources attempting to sample across all levels of proficiency to capture the full spectrum of meditation experience and expertise.
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Ben
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Re: Research assistance sought

Post by Ben »

Thank you Michael for the update and your explanation.
Kind regardds

Ben
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