People's Egos Get Bigger After Meditation and Yoga, Says Study (qz.com) 191
An anonymous reader shares a study that finds contemporary meditation and yoga practices can actually inflate your ego. Quartz reports: In the paper, published online by University of Southampton and due to be published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers note that Buddhism's teachings that a meditation practice helps overcome the ego conflicts with U.S. psychologist William James's argument that practicing any skill breeds a sense of self-enhancement (the psychological term for inflated self-regard.) There was already a fair bit of evidence supporting William James's theory, broadly speaking, but a team of researchers from University Mannheim in Germany decided to test it specifically in the context of yoga and meditation.
They recruited yoga 93 students and, over a period of 15 weeks, regularly evaluated their sense of self-enhancement. They used several measures to do this. First, they assessed participants' level of self-enhancement by asking how they compared to the average yoga student in their class. (Comparisons to the average is the standard way of measuring self-enhancement.) Second, they had participants complete an inventory that assesses narcissistic tendencies, which asked participants to rate how deeply phrases like "I will be well-known for the good deeds I will have done" applied to them. And finally, they administered a self-esteem scale asking participants whether they agreed with statements like, "At the moment, I have high self-esteem." When students were evaluated in the hour after their yoga class, they showed significantly higher self-enhancement, according to all three measures, than when they hadn't done yoga in the previous 24 hours.
They recruited yoga 93 students and, over a period of 15 weeks, regularly evaluated their sense of self-enhancement. They used several measures to do this. First, they assessed participants' level of self-enhancement by asking how they compared to the average yoga student in their class. (Comparisons to the average is the standard way of measuring self-enhancement.) Second, they had participants complete an inventory that assesses narcissistic tendencies, which asked participants to rate how deeply phrases like "I will be well-known for the good deeds I will have done" applied to them. And finally, they administered a self-esteem scale asking participants whether they agreed with statements like, "At the moment, I have high self-esteem." When students were evaluated in the hour after their yoga class, they showed significantly higher self-enhancement, according to all three measures, than when they hadn't done yoga in the previous 24 hours.
I'm too busy meditating to do this survey... (Score:3)
smug v. ego (Score:2)
how does one tell the difference between Ego and Smug?
Ego drives the Audi and Smug drives the Prius
list your own below....
Re: smug v. ego (Score:1)
Does doing something to cut pollution mean you're smug? If so the world needs many more smug people driving, whether speeding electrically down an empty highway or contentedly sitting there in traffic jams with a self-satisfied semi-smirk on their lips, as the engine management system quietly shuts off the motor.
Re: smug v. ego (Score:3)
Re: smug v. ego (Score:2)
NEWSFLASH:
Science shows ancient practice is fucked up.
Hippies respond: "well it wasn't fucked up before we knew it was fucked up!"
Re: smug v. ego (Score:2)
Always nice to see scottsmen engaging in the No True Yogi fallacy.
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Like with veganism? (Score:1)
I mean, just like that.
Must be Christians... (Score:3, Insightful)
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I am the walrus, kookoo ka choo.
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Re:Must be Christmas... (Score:2)
But it's all okay because it doesn't mention the G word.
God will smite you. Not the Christian God, but Dunning–Kruger himself.
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Because silly dogma that gullible people fall for is just misunderstood? Got it.
I have some pamphlets you might be interested in.
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Because silly dogma that gullible people fall for is just misunderstood? Got it.
It's not misunderstood, it's you in particular who doesn't understand it. The problem is you. You can't refute something you don't understand.
Or maybe you do understand it. Can you say something that shows you comprehend?
Re:Must be Christmas... (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you say something that shows you comprehend?
Mu.
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Re: Must be Christmas... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurr durr, my pet belief is totally awesome! You just don't understand!
- every crank ever
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Hurr durr, my pet belief is totally awesome! You just don't understand!
- every crank ever
The worst of those being those whose pet belief is that all beliefs are equally right or wrong.
Except, of course, their own belief that "all beliefs are equally right or wrong". That belief is awesome!
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Can you say something that shows you comprehend?
What is the next question.
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Because silly dogma that gullible people fall for is just misunderstood? Got it.
It's not misunderstood, it's you in particular who doesn't understand it. The problem is you. You can't refute something you don't understand.
You're doing a great job of displaying the article's point. Well Done!
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So far I only came across gobbledygook when I look up awakening, enlightenment, and so forth.
I guess it depends where you are looking. The four noble truths make it clear what enlightenment is (non-buddhists have different ideas, though).
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Do you actually know anything about Buddhism? Or do you merely think you do?
For starters, Buddhism isn't monolithic, there's a fair bit of differences within it.
At its core, Buddhism is far from dogmatic, and there is no 'indoctrination'. It boils down to understanding your self, recognising that being an angry asshole probably isn't making you happy, and that being nicer to people an
Re: Must be Christians... (Score:3)
Best metaphor I have: a river flows into an ocean. However, there is no specific point at which the river ends and the ocean begins. That boundary is fuzzy, precisely because it isn't actually a boundary at all. There's just water there, and the river and the ocean are concepts our mind carves out in order to understand them.
And those concepts are real, and useful, which is why we have them in the first place. If you take a drug which temporarily stops you from being able to tell the difference between a river and an ocean, that doesn't mean there is no difference. It just means you've fucked your brain to the point that it no longer sees a difference.
You don't get enlightenment from that. You may - according to this study - get a temporary sense of superiority from it, though. Much like flat earthers get a sense of superio
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Ego death, selflessness, the connection of all things, the first lesson from Adam and Eve's fall: They are all the same. People have been pointing to this phenomena for millennia, if you haven't noticed.
Look! Here come a bunch of self serving, arrogant, isolated, status-seeking people who stretch and think hard about how cool they look in their yoga pants. After looking at themselves in the mirror for an hour, comparing themselves to all of the other scantily clad people in their class, and meditating o
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Anyway, until you have had that experience, statements about the non-existence of the self, or oneness with everything, sound like "trivially-refuted nonsense." This is because that differentiated-self experience is there constantly, to the point where you can't even conceptualize reality without it.
You don't have to go through experimental route to benefit from this observation in practice. Many freely available texts describe all the necessary philosophy that you need to access the concept of anatta, without any drug use or exhausting practice that leaves you in a semi-conscious state. Even Scientologists use such practices to "purify" their minds for the acceptance of one truth and one bank account to give their money to.. Be careful out there, Padawans.
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Buddhists would have left their ego on the mat.
Right ...
Christians believe that they (like all humans) are sinful and in desperate need of forgiveness. That nothing they can do can earn that forgiveness; it must be a gift from outside of them, from Jesus. That they themselves are so bad that only the death of a perfect, sinless Man can atone for it.
Such arrogance!
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Buddhists would have left their ego on the mat.
Right ...
Christians believe that they (like all humans) are sinful and in desperate need of forgiveness. That nothing they can do can earn that forgiveness; it must be a gift from outside of them, from Jesus. That they themselves are so bad that only the death of a perfect, sinless Man can atone for it.
Such arrogance!
All religions are fucked up in one way or another but having lived amongst Buddhists for a while, Buddhism is the least fucked up of the major religions. Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions say that God is the only one who can judge, so some people go around doing shitty things without remorse because they think god thinks its OK. A Buddhist is responsible for creating their own destiny, if you've lived a shitty life being shitty to others, you're coming back as a slug and it's no-one's fault but
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Just because your understanding of divine forgiveness is incomplete and fucked up doesn't mean it undermines responsibility or the concepts of salvation, redemption, forgiveness, justification, unconditional love, grace, divine justice, etc.
What becomes completely obvious from your post is you lack the ability to see the "policy of god toward man," called grace, which when identified invests the observer with the ability to then transmit that same grace toward other humans.
Instead you see an excuse to do wh
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Christians believe that they (like all humans) are sinful and in desperate need of forgiveness.
Wrong about the "all humans" part. That's pretty unique to the Abrahamic religions, in particular christianity.
Such arrogance!
I'm guessing that you were being sarcastic, but yeah, it's fucking arrogant as hell to claim that you have some connection with a divine being, and are going to get infinitely rewarded by that divine being because you understand them and therefore are superior to all those who do not. To claim without evidence that there even is such a divine being is pretty fucking arrogant, let alone tell others
Re: Must be Christians... (Score:1)
Buddhist thoughts for the internet age:
Imagine the sound of one hand slapping an Anonymous Coward.
If a troll falls in a basement and no one is around to hear it, does anyone care?
Already a known problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is plenty of commentary in Buddhism on why serious meditative practice needs to be done with an proper teacher and inside a proper community to avoid these very issues. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is a great text that discusses this issue and how to approach it from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective. This is really nothing new, far from it.
And, yes, if you have a set of random people meditate with no or little guidance for four weeks, there will be a ego boost. Longer term, directed practice is required for real change.
Re:Already a known problem... (Score:5, Funny)
So it's like Agile: if it's not working then you are not spending enough on expensive gurus and consultants, and if you are spending a lot and not getting results, then you are using the WRONG expensive gurus and consultants, and should switch to the expensive guru who is pointing this out to you.
In other words, it may be a self-reinforcing Sisyphus racket, or at least could end up that way in the wrong guru hands. Proceed With Caution.
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LOL
Yes, it is like Agile insofar as a new perspective gives you useful tools for getting out of your rut. But if you love your rut, both Agile and meditation will not prevent you from recreating your old dysfunctional habits. (Where "you" perhaps is really "your company".)
As a practical matter, consultants can bring some value. But the cynical might guess that the advantage is, with enough money thrown at the problem, actual managers responsible for making key bad decisions in the past might show up to a
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I'm beyond all this. I'm not Agile enough to gaze at my own belly button.
Re: Already a known problem... (Score:1)
Don't be so defeatist, haven't you seen those statues of the laughing Buddha?
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I have a tee-shirt for the gym: "I have the body of a God". With a laughing Buddha picture.
Re: Already a known problem... (Score:2)
While I'm no fan of the 'one true scottsman' defense I've seen enough half assed dysfunctional 'scrum/agile' companies to see that it's not the process that's (usually) the problem, it's that companies think they can develop a "cargo cult" approach to this stuff and get some benefit out of it. They won't and the m
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In other words, it may be a self-reinforcing Sisyphus racket, or at least could end up that way in the wrong guru hands.
Yeah, you should find out what the guru is going to teach you before you commit 20 years of your life to following him. Ask him what sutra he reads, this stuff hasn't been secret for hundreds of years (if it ever was secret). Ask him what he is going to teach you. Don't commit to following a guy unless you want to go where he will lead you.
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The missing ingredient in both the Agile and meditation case is the same: motivation.
I've always said that the biggest real difference between success and failure on a software project, other than technical acumen relative to difficulty, is commitment to the user. You've got to care about results. If you do Agile for the sake of being someone who does Agile, you're just wasting time and money fashionably.
People succeeded in software before Agile, and people fail even though they do the rigmarole parts Agi
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Want to add that meditation is one of the hardest things to learn correctly because just like in say swimming it requires a lot of new neural activity, but unlike the swimming coach the teacher can't easily see how you're doing. Unless it is a great teacher, but they are rare.
Re: Yoga is not meditation (Score:1)
Of course! You're happy with yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
You've just completed a supposedly beneficial task. It's no different to completing a task at work or even winning a competition that matter.
One would hope one is happy occasionally.
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I'll happily hang on to my bytes of ego, thanks.
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Why would you need to mention any of these at all? These people are your friends, they should already know these three things about you. If there was a stranger in the group, you would mention the one that first comes up in conversation.
"Did you happen to catch _____ on TV last night?" -- "No, I don't have a TV."
"What do you do for fun/relaxation/exercise?" -- "I practice yoga."
"Have you tried that new steak house over on 5th St?" -- "No, sorry, I'm vegan."
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That made me chuckle.
Sadly the "don't have a TV" thing is kind of dated. I don't have a TV in the traditional sense...
I do yoga oh shit!
I do eat meat and I mostly watch DVDs which I buy second hand since there's a great second hand shop where I live, a bit of youtube and a bit of paid streaming service TV. I don't have a "TV" because the latop+screen does more than well enough.
Too lazy to brag? (Score:1)
I've also read meditation appears to make people less ambitious. One might argue as long as it makes one content it doesn't matter. Being confident and lazy won't necessarily harm you and others.
I thought the main goal of meditation was achieving "inner" peace? If increased confidence provides that, then you arguably have gained inner peace.
Of course some people are over-confident, which often leads to jerk-hood, but it might also provide confidence to those who lacked it before. Thus, increased confidenc
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Re: Too lazy to brag? (Score:2)
Right. What we really need in this world is more people who think they're better than everyone else. That ought to fix our problems.
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Self esteem is hard to define and different people will define it different.
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It seems like the people in the study had a better sense of self-esteem. I don't see any problem with that.
There is a difference between "self-esteem" and "inflated self-regard".
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Ambition is frequently the result of laboring under the illusion of inadequacy. Ambition has the goal of providing the proof to self and other that you are not inadequate. The proof is the target of the ambition. See this whatever? It's proof that I am not inadequate inside. See! I'm worthwhile because I have X.
If meditation relaxes some of the ambition driven by inadequacy I would not be surprised.
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Some of the most driven and materially successful people do seem to have something "digging" at their soul, often a bad childhood or relationship between one or more parent. Examples: John Lennon, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison.
This seems consistent with last week's article (Score:2)
basically saying that meditation makes you less motivated [slashdot.org] to put your nose to the grindstone for The Man.
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basically saying that meditation makes you less motivated [slashdot.org] to put your nose to the grindstone for The Man.
Or for yourself. Or for your neighbor. Or for your kids. Or for your aging parents. Or ...
Motivation ain't just for "the man".
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Get over yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
Meditation is good and useful practise for accessing different states of consciousness without drugs. There are many reasons why you want to do this. To say it reduces motivation and increases ego just indicates it is not being used properly. Brains are smart - minds are smarter and whilst you can fool the conscious mind fooling the unconscious mind is like trying to pretend gravity doesn't exist as you step off a cliff. Bottom line here - don't be fucking stupid, intent is everything.
In some cases though meditation is a form of spiritual bypassing of all the shit you've been through in your life. These things mess with your super ego, those little voices in your head that can give you constructive or destructive messages. If they are destructive you're going to have a crap opinion of yourself and meditation will expand any false reality you have constructed and turn you into a real asshole.
Bottom line: deal with your issues consciously first then meditation will be useful. Chances are you won't act like a dick either.
Have a nice day :)
Healthy self-esteem vs. malignant narcissism (Score:5, Insightful)
Did they make *any* attempt to distinguish between the two? If not, it's a worthless study.
Healthy self-esteem is based on a realistic and measured appreciation of your own good qualities ("I'm a good ukulele player"). Inflated self-esteem is, well, inflated ("I'm the greatest fucking ukulele player on earth"). Malignant narcissism, as seen for example in narcissistic personality disorder, also tends to include a competitive need to denigrate the positive qualities of others ("All other ukulele players are shit"), and tends to include the belief that you deserve special treatment because of your extraordinary qualities ("I should get my ukuleles sent to me for free, and I don't need to be nice to people because I'm such a genius at the ukulele").
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Doesn't the comparison to the average tests both inflated self-esteem and malignant narcissism while excluding healthy self-esteem?
If significantly more than half of a group consider themselves above average, it means that people overestimate their own skills or underestimate other people skills.
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It's a good point, that a "comparison to the average" test can tell us something about inflated self-regard, although even that is fraught with multiple problems. (Let's say 75% of the meditation group assess themselves as being better at yoga than the average student in their class. Are they comparing themselves to the entire class, or just to the subset that did meditation? Was the meditation subgroup randomly selected, and did they ensure that the average skill level of the meditation subgroup was sim
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Yup. Also, consider the person with extremely low self-esteem. Someone who walks around constantly thinking, "Whoa is me. I'm so terrible." etc. would, in the Buddhist sense, have a terrible problem with their ego. They're always focused on themself.
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There is no such thing as healthy self esteem. The self esteem movement is one of the worst things to happen to American culture and,
You seem to have enough of it.
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Self-esteem is a weird topic. I suspect half of the issue is semantics, because people often mean different things about esteem, as evidenced by the comments in this article.
Self-esteem might be one of those golden mean issues, where finding a balance is ideal, and too much or too little are both problematic.
Another way to look at it might be that it's a necessary thing to boost when it's too negative. Having burdensome issues with sense of self that get in the way of your ability to express thoughts or acc
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Considering the past weeks articles.. (Score:2)
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No. Smarmy, self-assured Slashdot posters and their ilk claim that anecdotes are not data. AN anecdote is not data. It is a datum. Once you have multiple anecdotes (notice the s indicating a plural), you most definitely have data.
Every single experiment ever performed was an anecdote.
Plenty of data to back this up (Score:2)
Observational data suggests that regularly practising Yoga strongly correlates with elevated levels of douchebaggery.
No different than vegetarians (Score:5, Funny)
Q: How do you know if someone is a vegetarian?
A: Don't worry, they'll let you know as soon as they can.
Explains all the know-it-all crystal healers (Score:2)
No fucking wonder their ego is so goddamned big.
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Nah (Score:2)
They were already like that.
These are the types of folks who do anything to be better than others.
Big ego (Score:1)
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One day, Su Dongpo felt inspired and wrote the following poem :
I bow my head to the heaven within heaven,
Hairline rays illuminating the universe,
The eight winds cannot move me,
Sitting still upon the purple golden lotus.
The "eight winds" in the poem referred to praise, ridicule, honor, disgrace, gain, loss, pleasure and misery - interpersonal forces of the material world that drive and influence the hearts of men.
Impressed by himself, Su Dongpo sent a servant to hand-carry this poem to Fo Yin. He was sure th
Wait (Score:4, Insightful)
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In the US (maybe elsewhere in the West, but I don't have any firsthand experience of it) there is a relationship between the upper middle class and "doing yoga". A recent episode of the NPR podcast Hidden Brain touched on this and talked about how certain practices such as attending yoga classes, shopping at farmers markets, and breastfeeding (among others) are forms of class signaling. With this in mind, I am not surprised at all that the act
Will relaxing help the egos too? (Score:2)
What would be interesting if just relaxing and e.g. listening to your favourite music for an hour would produce similar results.
Damnit (Score:2)
I read "eggos".
So disappointed.
Is it a bad thing? (Score:2)
It's all how you look at it. "Inflated ego" is a bad thing. "Confidence" and "self-esteem" are good things. But there often is little difference between them. This story is trying to spin it as a bad thing, but you could just as easily spin it as a good thing. So let's rewrite that headline.
People's Self-Esteem Increases After Meditation and Yoga, Says Study
Sounds like a good reason to meditate.
What a dumbass (Score:2)
Walk versus Yoga (Score:1)
One hour early morning walk is better than any Yoga
Re: Meditation means many things (Score:1)
I understand that you're an idiot, and like to make yourself feel superior by pretending to be enlightened.
Re: Meditation means many things (Score:2)
So deepity. Much cromulence.