Is Self-Centered a Refutation of the Ego-Quieting Hypothesis in Contemplative Practices?

Summary

Meditation reduces defensive, self-interested behaviors by quieting the ego when the self is threatened. Three experiments tested this effect: the first with 400 participants facing a proximal physical threat, the second with 200 participants facing a distal physical threat, and the third with 200 participants facing a threat to self-concept. Results showed that meditation quiets the ego, or tends to do so, when attention is on a self threatened by a thought-based context, countering the idea that meditation enhances self-salience.

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Abstract

Abstract: The self-centrality principle holds that contemplative practices activate self-salience, encouraging moral self-enhancement, rather than the expected effect of acceptance hypothesized by the ego-quieting principle ( Gebauer et al., 2018 ). However, meditation may favor ego-quieting by inhibiting the disposition to judge and/or react to defend more equanimously a self that feels threatened ( Brown et al., 2007 ). In this study, we propose that meditation helps to reduce behaviors based on self-interest by limiting the defensive sense of the ego when the self is salient. We carry out three experimental studies to test this proposal. The first one tests the effect of meditation on a salient self with a proximal threat to their physical survival ( N = 400). The second study tests the effect of meditation in the case of distal defensiveness in a salient self whose physical survival is threatened ( N = 200). The third study evaluates the effect of proximal defensiveness when the integrity of the self-concept of the salient self is threatened ( N = 200). Our results provide evidence that practicing meditation quiets the ego, or tends to do so, when attention is focused on a self-threatened by a context based on a thought.

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