An interesting headline at PsyPost. I don't think I'd ever seen the term "self-construals" before. It's perfectly easy to understand, but just odd. It feels dismissive of personhood and identity, as if those things are just a Western perspective.
Mindfulness developed as a part of Buddhism, where it’s intimately tied up with Buddhist spiritual teachings and morality.... [M]indfulness and Buddhism developed in Asian cultures in which the typical way in which people think about themselves differs from that in the U.S. Specifically, Americans tend to think of themselves most often in independent terms with “I” as their focus: “what I want,” “who I am.”
By contrast, people in Asian cultures more often think of themselves in interdependent terms with “we” as their focus: “what we want,” “who we are.” For interdependent-minded people, what if mindful attention to their own experiences might naturally include thinking about other people – and make them more helpful or generous?
The author of that text — which makes me uncomfortable — is Michael J. Poulin, an American psychology professor. From that "Asian" stereotype, Poulin came up with a hypothesis — "for independent-minded people, mindful attention would spur them to focus more on their individual goals and desires, and therefore cause them to become more selfish" — and designed an experiment.
I'm relieved to see that they didn't divide up the test subjects — 366 college students — as Asian and non-Asian. They tested them individually to classify them as thinking in an independent or an interdependent way. Some were given a real mindfulness exercise and some had a fake mindfulness exercise, and then they were asked if they'd put some time into stuffing envelopes with letters soliciting donations to charity.
[B]riefly engaging in a mindfulness exercise – as opposed to mind wandering – appeared to increase how many envelopes interdependent-minded people stuffed by 17%. However, among relatively independent-minded individuals, mindfulness appeared to make them less generous with their time. This group of participants stuffed 15% fewer envelopes in the mindful condition than in the mind-wandering condition....
Should we worry that mindfulness meditation will make us individualists more "selfish" than we already are? Or should we worry that mindfulness meditation will make people with underdeveloped individualism even more placidly compliant than they already are?
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26 comments:
Ah then mindfulness is indeed the word of the day!
"...people in Asian cultures more often think of themselves in interdependent terms with “we” as their focus: “what we want,” “who we are.”
Westerners by contrast think, what do you mean, "we?".
#1
There’s no reason to “worry” because there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being selfish. The study takes as a given that selfishness is bad, and should be avoided.
#2
The independent minded students already feel put upon for being required to participate in mindfulness exercises, and now you’re going give them the opportunity to give up more time that they’d just as soon be doing something else with. No.
Bizarre
I would like to see MINDFULNESS tested by asking each in the group to design a test for it - instead of the psychology professor imposing his self construal on the group
My experience with mindfulness meditation is that is is usually packaged up with a Buddhist type idea of connection with others and the universe. I don't see it taught in an individualized mindfulness vacuum. I can see where an experiment could be set up to create this result. My experience with lots of meditation over the last year, including several online at-home retreats, one 10 day retreat at a meditation center, and a daily meditation practice is that I'm more interested in being helpful to others AND also more focused on my individual goals and desires.
The author of this article referenced a journal article in APA PsycArticles: Journal Article that uses "constural" in the summary for the $14.95 article (1991).
Michael J. Poulin opens with a story about a Japanese chef bringing his own cooking water when he travels due to its lower mineral content. The paragraph ends with - "So when Americas enjoy Japanese food, they arguably aren’t getting quite the real thing." The most important word in that paragraph is "arguably".
Regarding his experiment, the results would be much more convincing after a few attempts at replication, as would, I'm assuming, the referenced material used in forming the hypothesis.
People acting in their self interest is a powerful engine that benefits all of humanity.
'Selfless' communalism leads to so many rules being written on the chalkboard that people abandon the system.
The individualist would say that "what we want" is a false question. You're second-guessing, and ultimately you're still being an individualist by trying to impose your own vision of what the group wants. And in most cases, I'll bet that the communitarian's view of what the group wants isn't far off from what they want for themselves. Might as well be more honest, let people express themselves individually, and figure out a way to sort through those views.
It's a nice little study with a click bait result, therefore it's most likely bullshit. The brevity of the mindfulness training is a fatal flaw.
I find the article disturbing. Scientists should formulate & test hypotheses, not attach value judgments to results. Even the title reveals the preferred results, which are summed up with this: "The take-home message? Mindfulness could lead to good social outcomes or bad ones, depending on context." Is a good gig when you are arbiter of good & bad.
The end is the most disturbing. The experimenters describe how they led the test subjects to the preferred results. I call that propaganda, or worse.
Perhaps the independent-minded folks saw the particular charity as less deserving than other endeavors, including those that help others such as participating in the market economy, which makes richer both the seller and buyer in most transactions.
When living in Tokyo, I once asked a Japanese friend (who went to college in the U.S.) why things were so orderly, and why there was much less crime, etc.
She said, 'We are Japanese and we know what Japanese want.' It was as if the entire group of Japanese citizens were somehow deciding together, that what was good for one person would be good for all people, and vice versa, but not in a Borg-like way.
The downside to this is an over-the-top (by American standards) humbleness and willingness to fade into the background, even if supremely talented in one field or another. They live entire lives seeking consensus.
Wow. That paragraph is creepily racist-adjacent. I think we've all heard of those faceless yellow hordes. Yikes!
"People acting in their self interest is a powerful engine that benefits all of humanity"
I'll go ya one further, and say that whenever I've gone out of my way to "selflessly" help another I just made a hash of things.
Even if everyone thought I was a saint, it seemed I'd only interfered with some inevitable chain of events that was better left to play out.
Not sure what to make of that.
The idea that stuffing envelopes is a selfless act and stuffing fewer envelopes is an indication of selfishness leaps out at me. Academic psychology has always been filled with this sort of nonsense. Overegg the pudding, overinterpret the result and publish, publish, publish. I think that truly independent-minded thinkers would want to get away from these people as fast as possible. Zero envelopes for me.
One important factor not considered: "stuffing envelopes with letters soliciting donations to charity" is not a neutral act of altruism, depending on the "charity" involved. The variable response to a charity flier among students might correlate with the independent mindset of some participants even more than the effect of the mindfulness exercise.
Additionally, most young people of college age would know that such junk mail is tossed away unopened by almost 100% of recipients, and see the altruistic task as pointless, or recognize the task as a metric of the study because it is so "unrelated" to the previous mindfulness exercise.
How about an altruistic task guaranteed to be universally supported by the study population of college students, such as stuffing free pizza coupons into envelopes for campuswide mailing, or some such? Yes, the coupons could be fake, no harm in fooling study participants.
Where is the "lightweight religion" tag? This is so much crap, telling Americans that their religious practices are inferior to "Asians" which by the way is a totally ignorant grouping of people from many different countries and cultures. My personal experience with "Asians", which is obviously anecdotal, is that they will throw you under the bus or take advantage of you just as readily as any red-blooded American citizen will. (Just ask me, I have several examples, even though I have not really known that many so-called "Asian" people).
Mindfulness is a central part of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy used for Borderline Personality Disorder (and its cousins). It was brought in by Marsha Linehan, a woman originally diagnosed with schizophrenia (though at the Institute for Living in Hartford, a treatment center for which I have little respect) who later decided she had BPD. It is deeply related to Buddhist meditative practices. Linehan herself is Roman catholic and believes this style of meditation is consonant with that, as do some of more mystical bent in the church. Most others are - ahem - less sure.
I am not opposed to the therapy and to mindfulness in general, but find it is overrated. Many people are naturally self-observant, others find it difficult. Sequential thinkers, much more common among females, find it difficult. Abstract thinkers, more often male, take to it more readily. So there is a subtext in mindfulness that many women don't think like men enough, though this is obscured by the fact that the practice is much more popular (and fashionable) among women.
I can see that among those who are already self-observant, encouraging even more of that might be worse than unnecessary and encourage self-absorption, as if we weren't self-absorbed enough already.
@ Ficta - People have said similar things about Swedes. Don't go looking for racism under every bush. Other cultures really can be different from us.
"People acting in their self interest is a powerful engine that benefits all of humanity"
So Gordon Gekko was right?
Many years ago I thought “construal” ought to be a word, but it didn’t seem to be. Later, in law, I found that instead the word is “construction”. We now live in such a descriptivist world that maybe “construal” is sanctioned, rather than seen as sanctionable.
culture does matter, and it's not racism to recognize that people are influenced by their cultural background,.
American culture emphasizes the individual.
This is not true for other cultures where your identity is based on who is your family, and you are assisted by your family but you are also expected to help others in the family, i.e. the elderly, children, the sick, etc...
As for mindfulness and Buddhist meditation: China long objected to Buddhism was because it emphasized individual enlightenment, instead of the Confucian ethic that emphasized family and duties.
Sigh......Resistance is futile.
I question the premise that Asian people are less self interested than any other group. Were Asian students over represented in the "interdependent thinking" group?
Maybe an American psychologist could fly to Afghanistan to teach the Taliban mindfulness practices, not the bad Western kind, though, but the good Eastern kind, all interdependent and stuff. That might bring peace. Those Taliban have such awful self-construals, so independent and authoritarian. It's worth a try. They could even write up the results in a psychology journal.
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