Sacred vs. secular mindfulness meditation: the influence of presentation priming on therapeutic effectiveness

Abstract

ABSTRACT Mindfulness is a traditional, spiritual Buddhist practice that has entered the mainstream of applied psychology and become secularised. This study examined the differential influence of the presentation priming of mindfulness meditation—as either a “sacred Buddhist practice” or a “scientifically proven tool”—on its therapeutic effectiveness in a general sample of college students. ANCOVA were run using outcome pretest scores as the covariates and outcome posttest scores as the dependent variables. Results indicated a main effect of condition on depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, positive affect, happiness, and optimism—suggesting that both mindfulness conditions were therapeutically effective compared to the control condition. Follow-up pairwise comparisons showed that the secular intervention was significantly more effective than the sacred intervention for increasing happiness—suggesting differential therapeutic effectiveness as a function of priming. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.