TY - JOUR

T1 - Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

AU - Lumma, Anna Lena

AU - Böckler, Anne

AU - Vrticka, Pascal

AU - Singer, Tania

N1 - Funding information: Tania Singer, as principal investigator, received funding for the ReSource Project from (a) the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program [FP7/2007-2013/ ERC Grant Agreement Number 205557 to T.S.], and (b) from the Max Planck Society. We are thankful to all the members of the Department of Social Neuroscience involved in the ReSource study over the many years, in particular to all ReSource teachers who taught the intervention program, to Astrid Ackermann, Christina Bochow, Matthias Bolz, and Sandra Zurborg for managing the large-scale longitudinal study, to Hannes Niederhausen, Henrik Grunert and Torsten Kästner for their technical support, to Sylvia Tydeks, Elisabeth Murzick, Manuela Hofmann, Sylvie Neubert, and Nicole Pampus for their help with recruitment and data collection, and to Bethany Kok for her statistical guidance. Finally, we would like to thank Markus Wolf and Roger Booth who assisted us with the LIWC software.

PY - 2017/9/3

Y1 - 2017/9/3

N2 - In a large-scale longitudinal mental training study, we examined whether learning different contemplative practices can change the emotional content of people’s self-concept as assessed through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test. During three 3-month training modules, participants learned distinct practices targeting attentional, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive capacities, or were re-tested. Emotional word use specifically increased after socio-cognitive training including perspective-taking on self and others, compared to attentional and socio-affective compassion-based trainings, and retest-controls. Overall, our findings demonstrate training-induced behavioral plasticity of the emotional self-concept content in healthy adults and could indicate greater emotional granularity. These findings can inform future interventions in mental health, given that alterations in self-referential processing are a common contributing factor in psychopathology.

AB - In a large-scale longitudinal mental training study, we examined whether learning different contemplative practices can change the emotional content of people’s self-concept as assessed through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test. During three 3-month training modules, participants learned distinct practices targeting attentional, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive capacities, or were re-tested. Emotional word use specifically increased after socio-cognitive training including perspective-taking on self and others, compared to attentional and socio-affective compassion-based trainings, and retest-controls. Overall, our findings demonstrate training-induced behavioral plasticity of the emotional self-concept content in healthy adults and could indicate greater emotional granularity. These findings can inform future interventions in mental health, given that alterations in self-referential processing are a common contributing factor in psychopathology.

KW - emotional word use

KW - meditation

KW - mental training

KW - Self-concept content

KW - trait affect

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85014539048&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/15298868.2017.1294107

DO - 10.1080/15298868.2017.1294107

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85014539048

VL - 16

SP - 607

EP - 628

JO - Self and identity

JF - Self and identity

SN - 1529-8868

IS - 5

ER -