Kindness is Lesser Preferable Than Happiness: Investigating Interest in Different Effects of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations

NCT ID: NCT06424951

Last Updated: 2024-05-22

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 1658 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2019-02-01
• Study Completion Date: 2020-08-01

Brief Summary

As an initial step, Study 1 intended to compare the interest in different effects of LKCM among a convenient sample of university students. In order to separate different effects and close to application in real setting, the study will measure participants' interest in participating in proposed meditations, each of which aimed to generate one specific effect. The kind attitudes were represented by compassion for others, compassion for oneself, and appreciative joy for others, which were emphasized in the real LKCM trainings. The emotional well-being included increasing positive emotion, decreasing negative emotion and improving peacefulness, which were validated effects of LKCM. Other validated effects were also measured as fillers and used as additional explorations. The core hypothesis was that the interest in meditations on kind attitudes is significantly lower than interest in meditations on emotional well-being.

The current study created a measure called Willingness to Participate in Meditation Trainings (WPMT). Participants rated their willingness to participate in nine meditation trainings that serve different purposes. Each meditation was rated by one item ("if the purpose of meditation training is to xxx, how much are you willing to participate?" where "xxx" indicates the purposes listed below) and was measured with a 100-mm Visual Analogue Scale (0 = totally unwilling to participate, 100 = totally willing to participate).

Study 2 adopted WPMT in a 21-day online LKCM training. This make sure all participants really took part in meditation training, and allowed further exploration on how participants' WPMT were associated with the adherence and effects of training. To be more sensitive for the change during short training, the effects of training used state-like measures and still focused on two aspects: (1) personal happiness (happiness, sadness, peacefulness) which matched emotional well-being, and (2) interpersonal relationship (love, hate, gratitude) which reflected kind attitudes. The core hypotheses were that higher interest in meditations on Emotional Well-being and Kind attitudes predicted increases in personal happiness and interpersonal relationship, respectively.

Conditions

Meditation

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NA
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: OTHER
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

LKCMs

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

LKCM(Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations)

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations

Interventions

LKCM(Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations)

Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

For study 1 Participants were recruited from two universities in Mainland China with the help of university staff. No other eligibility tests were required.

For study 2 Participants with or without religious beliefs or meditation experience could participate in the study. Each person is required to complete a 21-day meditation course.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 16 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 72 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Beijing Normal University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Locations

Beijing Normal University

Beijing, , China

Countries

China

References

Deng Y, Du T, Zeng X, Wang W. Kindness is lesser preferable than happiness: investigating interest in different effects of the loving-kindness and compassion meditations. BMC Psychol. 2025 Apr 26;13(1):443. doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-02771-4.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 40287761 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

KM202210028001

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id