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Science

People's Egos Get Bigger After Meditation and Yoga, Says Study (qz.com) 191

Posted by BeauHD from the surprise-to-no-one dept.
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.
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People's Egos Get Bigger After Meditation and Yoga, Says Study More

People's Egos Get Bigger After Meditation and Yoga, Says Study

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  • I'm too busy meditating to do this survey... (Score:3)

    by ole_timer ( 4293573 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @08:06PM (#56819360)
    ...and you results are below me...

  • I mean, just like that.

  • Must be Christians... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Fat Bastard ( 5389025 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @08:18PM (#56819430)
    Buddhists would have left their ego on the mat.
    • Ego in Buddhism is somewhat different than Ego in psychology. In Buddhism Zen you learn there is no independently existing self, but the non-self is pretty great. To quote a monk, "you are buddha." To quote a particular nun, "You are me and I am you."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        I am the walrus, kookoo ka choo.

    • 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!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        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

        • 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

      • 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

  • Already a known problem... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ndykman ( 659315 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @08:19PM (#56819434)

    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)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @08:38PM (#56819532) Journal

      serious meditative practice needs to be done with an proper teacher and inside a proper community to avoid these very issues.

      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.

      • 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

      • The embodiment of Christ and his disciples already died (I mean quit) for your chronically dysfunctional company so that they could rise on the seventh day at a company that could still be healed.

        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

      • 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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        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

    • 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.

  • Of course! You're happy with yourself (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evanh ( 627108 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @08:24PM (#56819454)

    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.

  • 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

    • It seems like the people in the study had a better sense of self-esteem. I don't see any problem with that.

      • 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.

        • Why not? You do.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by N1AK ( 864906 )
          While having a world full of people like you who can't see the difference between having self-esteem and feeling superior to others would be so much better? In my experience the people who are most condescending and uncaring towards others often have poor self-esteem, which makes them either refuse to accept the value of others or begrudge them for it as part of their coping mechanism.

      • 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".

    • 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.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        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.

  • basically saying that meditation makes you less motivated [slashdot.org] to put your nose to the grindstone for The Man.

  • Get over yourself (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @09:09PM (#56819666) Journal

    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)

    by Harvey Manfrenjenson ( 1610637 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @09:13PM (#56819680)

    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").

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      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.

      • 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

    • 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.

  • What we've really determined is: Psychological Science isn't.

  • Observational data suggests that regularly practising Yoga strongly correlates with elevated levels of douchebaggery.

  • No different than vegetarians (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vinegar Joe ( 998110 ) on Thursday June 21, 2018 @02:18AM (#56820524)

    Q: How do you know if someone is a vegetarian?
    A: Don't worry, they'll let you know as soon as they can.

  • No fucking wonder their ego is so goddamned big.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • They were already like that.
    These are the types of folks who do anything to be better than others.

  • I remember a guy from college who went to a Universal Unitarian church. He came back one night talking about how they had done Buddhist meditation and something else and now his karma was perfectly aligned and he felt so amazing and like everything was right, blah blah blah..... Then 1-2 hours later he was in a rage because he wanted to take a shower, and someone else was in the dorm bathroom taking a dump. (He didn't want someone else smelling up the bathroom while he was in the shower, so he was cussing

    • 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)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Thursday June 21, 2018 @07:57AM (#56821142) Journal
    Wait, you mean that dabbling in cherry picked pieces of other cultures' spiritual practices might be some sort of dilettante-ish thing??
    • This is what immediately came to mind when I read the summary.

      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

  • What would be interesting if just relaxing and e.g. listening to your favourite music for an hour would produce similar results.

  • I read "eggos".

    So disappointed.

  • 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.

  • Meditation isn't a "skill" you can practice. Meditation is literally conservation of energy through non-action. You just sit around doing nothing. If you're doing something, you're not meditating. People who don't understand this are people who only have a cursory understanding of meditation, and why Buddhists meditate. All these newage monkeys with their yoga and their meditation workshops and shit, these people will never achieve anything because they don't understand why they're meditating in the first p

  • One hour early morning walk is better than any Yoga

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