Does loving-kindness meditation elicit empathic emotions? The moderating role of self-discrepancy and self-esteem on guilt

I. Carrero, C. Martínez de Ibarreta Zorita, C. Valor, A. Merino

Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being Vol. 15, nº. 3, pp. 919 - 937

Summary:

Our understanding of the emotions elicited by loving-kindness meditation (LKM) at early stages of practice is limited, despite the influence that these emotions may have on later engagement. Past work suggests that LKM may elicit emotional ambivalence at early stages of the practice, but it is still unclear whether the content of LKM activates this ambivalence and who is more likely to experience it. Given the specific content of LKM, we defend that this meditation is likely to elicit empathetic emotions, both positive (compassion and gratitude) and negative (guilt), to a greater extent than an active control. Guilt is likely to be elicited by memories of incidents where naïve meditators were not able to experience compassion and/or by the difficulties in sending compassionate love to disliked others during the meditation. Furthermore, individuals with greater self-discrepancy and lower self-esteem are more likely to experience guilt. These hypotheses were tested in two experimental studies with community and student samples (n = 55 and n = 33, respectively) and using a brief intervention. The results support the hypotheses. These findings have implications for instructors of LKM, especially when organizing meditation practices with naïve meditators who should be aware of the potential negative emotions elicited by this meditation.

Spanish layman's summary:

Al empezar a hacer meditación de compasión, se suele sentir culpa. El trabajo demuestra que aquellos con mayor discrepancia entre su yo ideal y real, o con menor auto-estima experimentan más culpa en las etapas iniciales de meditación.

English layman's summary:

When one starts practicing loving-kindness meditation, it is frequent to experience guilt. This paper demonstrates that those with greater self-discrepancy and lower self-esteem are more likely to experience guilt.

Keywords: compassion, gratitude, guilt, loving-kindness meditation, self-discrepancy, self-esteem

JCR Impact Factor and WoS quartile: 6,900 - Q1 (2022)

DOI reference: https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12416

Published on paper: August 2023.

Published on-line: November 2022.

Citation:
I. Carrero, C. Martínez de Ibarreta Zorita, C. Valor, A. Merino, Does loving-kindness meditation elicit empathic emotions? The moderating role of self-discrepancy and self-esteem on guilt. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being. Vol. 15, nº. 3, pp. 919 - 937, August 2023. [Online: November 2022]