THE EFFECT OF MINDFULNESS TRAINING ON THE SELF-REGULATION OF SOCIO-MORAL
THOUGHTS
Abstract
The change in moral attitude due to discrimination of the degree of
reality of thought is an unexplored potential effect of mindfulness
training. In this article we examine whether the mindfulness training of
novices reduces the defensive reaction to normative transgressions when
the socio-moral threatened thought is salient. To test the study
hypotheses we used a bifactorial design mindfulness training (pre vs.
post) x threatened thought salience (low vs high). The dependent
variable (punishment of social norm transgression) was measured on two
different occasions: 1) pre-training (T1), 2) after training (T2). One
group receives training in mindfulness in the threatened thought
salience low condition, and a second group receives the same training in
the threatened thought salience high condition. The results show that
training mindfulness reduces moral punishment with high threatened
thought salience, and reduce moral jugdment with low threatened thought
salience. Thought of threatened socio-moral norms affects socio-moral
reactivity, but does not affect soico-moral judgment. Implications of
the results and limitations of the study are also explored.