Mindfulness Practice Makes Moral People More Moral
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Mindfulness Practice Makes Moral People More Moral Qianguo Xiao 1
&
Chunmei Hu 1 & Ting Wang 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Objectives In prior studies, mixed results have been obtained regarding the relations between mindfulness, moral judgment, and prosocial behavior. We conducted two studies to better clarify the connections between mindfulness and several moral variables. Methods In Study 1, a cross-sectional survey (N = 554) was conducted to test the possible associations between mindfulness, moral sensitivity, moral identity, and prosocial behavior. In Study 2, a randomized controlled experiment was conducted to examine the impact of a mindfulness intervention on moral identity and prosocial behavior. A total of 99 participants (n = 49, mindfulness group; n = 50, wait-list control group), all of whom were undergraduate students on an optional 11-week mindfulness-based self-exploration course, were recruited via the campus network system. Results In Study 1, we found that mindfulness, moral sensitivity, moral identity, and prosocial behavior were all positively correlated. Results of the mediation analysis suggested that dispositional mindfulness had significant effects on prosocial tendencies both directly and indirectly via the mediator variables of moral sensitivity and moral identity. In Study 2, mindfulness practice was found to significantly improve the levels of mindfulness and self-compassion in participants but only had a significant effect on willingness toward prosocial behavior for those participants with existing high moral identity. Conclusions Study 1 confirmed the predicted links between mindfulness, moral sensitivity, moral identity, and prosocial behavior. Study 2 suggested that moral identity influences the effect of mindfulness practice on willingness toward prosocial behavior. However, the underlying mechanisms and causes of this effect require further study. Keywords Dispositional mindfulness . Moral sensitivity . Moral identity . Prosocial tendencies
In the Buddhist tradition, mindfulness is a richer and more profound concept than is currently understood and applied in psychology (Kang and Whittingham 2010). Developing wisdom, compassion, and an ethical outlook is the foundational intention of mindfulness in traditional meditative practice. According to the Noble Eightfold Path, mindfulness closely interweaves with morality and ethics. Ethical behavior is the basis for right mindfulness, which in turn relies on mindfulness (Kang and Whittingham 2010). Therefore, some scholars have argued that mindfulness necessarily includes ethical speech and action as part of a complex set of interrelated processes (Greenberg and Mitra Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01478-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Qianguo Xiao [email protected] 1
Laboratory of Emotion and Mental Health, Chongqing University of Arts and
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