title: Effects of an 8-week meditation program on the implicit and explicit attitudes toward religious/spiritual self-representations.
abstract: Explicit self-representations often conflict with implicit and intuitive self-representations, with such discrepancies being seen as a source of psychological tension. Most of previous research on the psychological effects of mindfulness-meditation has assessed people's self-attitudes at an explicit level, leaving unknown whether mindfulness-meditation promotes changes on implicit self-representations. Here, we assessed the changes in implicit and explicit self-related religious/spiritual (RS) representations in healthy participants following an 8-week mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) program. Before and after meditation, participants were administered implicit (implicit association test) and explicit (self-reported questionnaires) RS measures. Relative to control condition, MOM led to increases of implicit RS in individuals whit low pre-existing implicit RS and to more widespread increases in explicit RS. On the assumption that MOM practice may enhance the clarity of one's transcendental thoughts and feelings, we argued that MOM allows people to transform their intuitive feelings of implicit RS as well as their explicit RS attitudes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy; Department of Psychology, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Rome, Italy. Electronic address: cristiano.crescentini@uniud.it.
authors.forename: Cristiano
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Crescentini
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Cosimo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Urgesi
authors.affiliation: Section of Neurosurgery, University-Hospital "Santa Maria della Misericordia", Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Campanella
authors.affiliation: Section of Neurology, University-Hospital "Santa Maria della Misericordia", Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Eleopra
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy; Perceptual Robotics (PERCRO) Laboratory, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fabbro
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019122:Meditation / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D064866:Mindfulness / Q000379:methods*; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D029181:Spirituality
keywords: Implicit association test; Mindfulness meditation; Religiousness–Spirituality