Loving-Kindness Meditation and Compassion Meditation: Do They Affect Emotions in a Different Way?
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Loving-Kindness Meditation and Compassion Meditation: Do They Affect Emotions in a Different Way? Ulyana Sirotina 1,2
&
Sergei Shchebetenko 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Objectives Despite being often overlapped and used interchangeably in academic literature, loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM) are also seen to have their distinct features. As a differential approach towards LKM and CM can promote a more accurate integration of these practices into the clinical field, it is worth studying their differential effects. The present preregistered study, thus, aimed to experimentally compare effects of single-session LKM and CM on first-time practitioners’ emotions. Methods Two hundred and one university students were randomly allocated to three (LKM, CM, and control) groups. The selfreported emotions were measured twice, before and after completing an assigned task. Results Both LKM and CM significantly increased other-focused positive emotions, compared with the control condition. Both LKM and CM increased happiness and overall positive emotions and decreased sadness; however, the effect sizes of LKM were consistently larger compared to those of CM. Both LKM and CM significantly increased low arousal positive emotions, compared with the control condition. Conclusions LKM and CM represent two theoretically different practices. However, as they belong to the same tradition of meditation, they are similar in their intention of forming positive wishes towards self and others, and this appeared to have a positive effect on practitioners’ emotional experience. At the same time, LKM was found to be more effective in evoking positive emotions in first-time practitioners, compared with CM. Keywords Meditation . Emotions . Compassion . Loving-kindness . Four immeasurables . Buddhism
Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM) refer to a special group of Buddhist meditations that are translated to English as “Four Immeasurables Meditations” (FIMs; Zeng et al. 2017). In addition to LKM and CM, FIMs also include appreciative joy meditation (AJM) and equanimity meditation (EM). Traditionally, these meditations are practiced in a continuous sequence, starting
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01465-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Ulyana Sirotina [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Myasnitskaya 20, Moscow, Russia 101000
2
George Mason University, University Dr, Fairfax, VA, USA
with LKM, then moving on to CM and AJM, and ending with EM (Buddhaghosa 2010). It is often said that the other three attitudes grow out of loving-kindness, meaning that lovingkindness acts as the base for cultivating compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity (Salzberg 2020). Although all FIMs are undoubtedly prosocial and interdependent, they are also
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