Reactions of transcendental meditators and nonmeditators to stress films. A cognitive study.
To experimentally test the claimed stress-reducing effects of Transcendental Meditation (TM), two stress films were shown to a group of 60 meditators and nonmeditators. Stress response was observed through the use of cognitive and affective measures employing content analysis techniques and self-ratings. The meditators did not show less stress response than the nonmeditators. On several self-rating scales, a group of subjects who had signed up to be initiated into TM rated themselves significantly more stressed and emotionally distressed than either a control group or meditators. There was a trend for meditators who meditated during the experiment to show less stress response to the films than meditators who were told not to meditate; however, this difference was significant on only one measure, a subjective stress scale.
D003071:Cognition; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009040:Motion Pictures; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D012064:Relaxation Therapy; D012107:Research Design; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*; D014796:Visual Perception