Calming Meditation Increases Altruism, Decreases Parochialism

Summary

A brief breath-awareness practice that induces calm reduces parochialism (favoring one's own group) and increases altruism (self-sacrifice for anyone, regardless of group). This finding supports the hypothesis that cultivating calm broadens prosocial behavior beyond group boundaries, and contradicts the alternative hypothesis that shared practices increase parochialism. In a behavioral experiment, participants played anonymous Public Goods games with both in-group and out-group members; contributions were analyzed using Bayesian model comparison. The results showed that the calming practice decreased parochialism and increased altruism, with no support for the idea that shared practice promotes parochialism.

Study at a glance

Abstract

It has been proposed that cultivating calm will increase altruism and decrease parochialism, where altruism is defined as self-sacrifice in support of others, regardless of group affiliation or identity, and parochialism is defined as prosocial self-sacrifice restricted to fellow members of a group. Such could be the case with a calming meditation practice. An alternate hypothesis, coming from the study of ritual, proposes that shared practices lead to bonding, increasing parochialism, but not altruism generally. These contradictory hypotheses of the potential effects of shared cultural practices of calming meditation were explored via a formal behavioral experiment using a simple treatment and control format with a short, facilitated breath awareness practice known to produce calm. Altruism and parochialism were measured through anonymous play in Public Goods games performed with both in-group and out-group individuals. The sum of contributions of the two plays gave a measure of altruism, while the difference between the two gave a measure of parochialism. The analysis of the results using Bayesian AICc model comparison methods supports the first hypothesis that calming practices reduces parochialism and increases altruism. The hypothesis of intentional shared practice as parochialism inducing was not supported by the results in this case of a shared calming practice.