THE EFFECT OF MINDFULNESS TRAINING ON THE SELF-REGULATION OF SOCIO-MORAL THOUGHTS

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.