Abstract
Objectives
There is limited understanding of what motivates people to initiate and sustain meditation practice. This study investigates initial and current motivations for meditation, demographic variability in motivations, and associations with ongoing and lifetime meditation practice.
Methods
A national sample of internet users were recruited to examine initial and current motivations for meditation practice.
Results
Nine hundred fifty-three participants completed the initial screening and 470 (49.3%) reported exposure to meditation practice. Four hundred thirty-four (92.3%) completed a follow-up assessment. The participants most frequently reported mental health/stress alleviation as an initial motivation (n = 322, 74.2%) followed by spiritual (n = 122, 28.1%), physical health (n = 69, 15.9%), awakening/enlightenment (n = 64, 14.7%), cultural (n = 51, 11.8%), and other (n = 33, 7.6%). The participants reported a mean of 1.52 (SD = 0.83) initial motivations. Among those currently meditating, a significant increase in the number of motivations was found between initial and current motivations (1.60 [SD = 0.89] and 2.11 [SD = 1.16], for initial and current motivations, respectively, Cohen’s d = 0.45). The number of motivations was positively associated with meditation practice. Initial mental health motivation was found to be negatively associated with current and lifetime meditation practice, whereas spiritual motivation was found to be positively associated.
Conclusions
While meditation started as a tool for spiritual attainment, findings suggest that it is predominantly used in the USA for mental health support and to manage stress. Findings suggest that both type and number of motivations may relate to the course of practice.
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Data Availability
All data and code used for analysis are available at the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/djpn4/?view_only=1249d4df5e8e4ba1b27158d7b5fea647).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Qiang Xie and Shobhali Thapa for the conversation which inspired this study.
Funding
This research was supported by grants K23AT010879 (SBG) and U24AT011289-01 (RJD) from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Simon Goldberg was supported in part by the Hope for Depression Research Foundation ‘Defeating Depression’ Award. Additional support for this research was provided by the Graduate School, part of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the UW–Madison.
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ZJ: conducted the formal analysis and wrote the original manuscript draft; SUL: collaborated on the study conceptualization and methodology and reviewed and edited the manuscript draft; RJD: collaborated on the study conceptualization and methodology and reviewed and edited the manuscript draft; SBG: supervised the study, led the study conceptualization and methodology, supervised the formal analysis, and reviewed and edited the manuscript draft.
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The institutional review boards of the University of Wisconsin–Madison approved the research described in this article (IRB # 2020–1368).
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Richard J. Davidson is the founder and president of and serves on the board of directors for the non-profit organization Healthy Minds Innovations, Inc. No donors, either anonymous or identified, have participated in the design, conduct, or reporting of research results in this manuscript.
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All participants provided written informed consent before study activities commenced.
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RJD is the founder and president of and serves on the board of directors for the non-profit organization Healthy Minds Innovations, Inc. This research was supported by grants K23AT010879 (SBG) and U24AT011289-01 (RJD) from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Simon Goldberg was supported in part by the Hope for Depression Research Foundation ‘Defeating Depression’ Award. Additional support for this research was provided by the Graduate School, part of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the UW–Madison.
ZJ: conducted the formal analysis and wrote the original manuscript draft. SUL: collaborated on the study conceptualization and methodology and reviewed and edited the manuscript draft. RJD: collaborated on the study conceptualization and methodology and reviewed and edited the manuscript draft. SBG: supervised the study, led the study conceptualization and methodology, supervised the formal analysis, and reviewed and edited the manuscript draft.
All data and code used for analysis are available at the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/djpn4/?view_only = 063893e0094b4fcbbb018d1a53bea55f).
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Qiang Xie and Shobhali Thapa for the conversation which inspired this study.
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Jiwani, Z., Lam, S.U., Davidson, R.J. et al. Motivation for Meditation and Its Association with Meditation Practice in a National Sample of Internet Users. Mindfulness 13, 2641–2651 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01985-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01985-6