The Effects of Meditation and Contemplative Prayer
on Executive Functioning
Ashley Schreiber with Daniel Eckert
Figure 1: Meditation
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16342/the-mindfulness-revolution-is-here.html
Introduction
The practice of meditation, separated from its
religious underpinnings, is growing more popular
as a method of improving mental health. New
research continues to emerge about the benefits of
continued meditation practice. Despite these
positives, many individuals struggle to find time to
meditate in American fast-paced culture. In light of
this, further research is examining the effects of
very short practice of meditation.
In the 1970s, the abbot Keating at St. Joseph’s
Abbey described contemplative prayer as Christian
meditation (Ferguson, Willemsen, & Castañeto,
2010). The goal of contemplative prayer may be
described as to be in relationship with God
(Ferguson et al., 2010). There is not a great deal of
valid research on contemplative prayer, although
there is a plethora of research on meditation.
Figure 3: Rosary https://www.etsy.com/listing/97698776/emerald-greenrosary-boys-or-girls-men?ref=market
Ramsburg and Youmans (2014) conducted
research in a higher-education setting, finding that
participants in their focused attention meditation
condition demonstrated better information
retention (Ramsburg & Youmans, 2014).
Researchers Chan and Woollacott (2007) provided
support for the concept that focused and open
monitoring meditation improves individuals’
performance on a Stroop task (as cited in
Ramsburg & Youmans, 2014).
.
Even brief, four-day mindfulness
meditation
training for 20 minutes has been shown to improve
sustained attentional skills, working memory, and
executive functioning (Zeidan, Johnson, Diamond,
David, & Goolkasian, 2010). Using the Stroop task
to measure an aspect of attention, Moore and
Malinowski (2009) found that meditators
improved on all measures of attention.
This present study used the Stroop task to measure
the executive functioning of participants after
meditation, contemplative prayer, or the control
Facebook task. It is hypothesized that those in the
meditation condition will have faster times on the
Stroop task than those in the other conditions.
Figure 2: Mandala
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Method
Participants
Forty-seven Messiah College students (seven
male, 40 female) from the ages of 16 to 22
were recruited from Introductory Psychology
classes and an Abnormal Psychology class to
participate in this research. Sixteen students
were randomly assigned to either the control or
meditation condition groups, and fifteen were
randomly assigned to the contemplative prayer
group.
Materials
Necessary materials used in this study were a
bag, stopwatches on phones, and white boards
on the doors of three interview rooms.
Additionally, three sheets containing a Bible
verse, materials for the administration of a
Stroop task , and two questionnaires were
utilized.
Procedure
In this study, each participant was escorted to
an interview room, in which he or she chose a
slip of paper in a bag with one of the three
conditions/tasks on it. After reading
instructions on their chosen task and
understanding how to perform it, participants
practiced the assigned activity for five minutes.
Directly following this participation, students
completed a Stroop task and a questionnaire.
34
33
32
31
Meditation
30
Facebook Task
29
Figure 5: Zen Scene http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=102523
Results
The means and standard deviations for the Stroop
times in seconds for the three conditions can be
found in Table 1. Participants who indicated that
they do not regularly meditate or never meditate
number 21 (45%). Seven participants indicated
that they meditated four or more times per week.
A one-way ANOVA for the condition and Stroop
time variables indicated significance such that F
(2, 44) = 4.22, p < .05, 2part. = .161. In a test of
pairwise comparisons, the mean difference
between contemplative prayer and the Facebook
task was 4.206 with p < .05, and the mean
difference between meditation and the Facebook
task was 4.635 with p < .05.
A one-way ANOVA for the conditions and
Toronto Mindfulness Questionnaire was
conducted, indicating no significance. However,
in a test of pairwise comparisons, the conditions
of meditation and the Facebook task displayed
significance (MD = 7.00, p < .05).
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics for Conditions
_________________________________________________________________________________
__________95% CI_____________
___Condition_______________M_(SD)_______________LL_________________________UL____
Contemplative Prayer
29.1 (3.59)
26.5
31.7
Meditation
28.6 (5.51)
26.1
31.1
Facebook Task
33.3 (5.48)
30.8
35.8
Figure 4: Hands in Prayer
http://www.catholicchapterhouse.com/blog/?attachment_id=6703
Contemplative Prayer
28
27
26
Stroop Task (in seconds)
Discussion
The results indicate that short, five-minute
practices of meditation as well as contemplative
prayer can yield higher levels of executive
functioning as measured by a Stroop task, so the
hypothesis was not fully supported.
Analysis of results indicated that there was a
great deal of variability in the Facebook task
condition on the Toronto Mindfulness
Questionnaire, which may be due to the
variability of the News Feeds on Facebook to
which each participant was exposed.
Also, some participants were recruited from a
class which was required to meditate regularly
the previous week before the experimental
session.. Although the assignment took place a
week before the sessions, it is likely that students
somewhat continued the practice, experiencing
its beneficial effects. However, these participants
did not significantly influence the main findings
of this research.
Future research may consider examining the
brain activity of novice participants practicing
mediation or contemplative prayer. Also, further
experiments may utilize differing tests involving
attention or other beneficial effects of brief
mediation.
:
References
Ferguson, J. K., Willemsen, E. W., & Castañeto, M. V. (2010). Centering prayer as a healing response to everyday stress: A psychological and spiritual process. Pastoral Psychology, 59, 305-329. doi:10.1007/s11089-009-0225-7
Moore, A., & Malinowski, P. (2009). Meditation, mindfulness and cognitive flexibility. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 18, 176-186. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2008.12.008
Ramsburg, J. T., & Youmans, R. J. (2014). Meditation in the higher-education classroom: Meditation training improves student knowledge retention during lectures. Mindfulness, 5, 431-441. doi:10.1007/s12671-013-0199-5
Zeidan, F., Johnson, S. K., Diamond, B. J., David, Z., & Goolkasian, P. (2010). Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 19, 597-605.
doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.014