What Is Directed Meditation and How It Can Alter Your Personality
by Laura Jonson
Learning Mind
We all know that meditation has a calming effect, but can it really change someone as a person? Let’s talk about directed meditation and its personality-altering effects.
In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, volume 27, pages 100 to 108, you will find the “…From Jerusalem to Jericho” section written by J.M. Darley and D Baston. In it, they wrote about the very famous, “Good Samaritan Study” that took place at the Princeton Theological Seminary.
In the study, they set up a series of talkers to visit different locations and give talks to the waiting students. Each speaker passed a man in the street who was slumped on a bench and very overtly groaning (seemingly in great discomfort). Only four out of the ten speakers stopped to see if the man was okay and/or try to help. The other six didn’t acknowledge him at all. The punch line was that all ten speakers were giving speeches about the virtues of the Good Samaritan.
What is more telling, and maybe more disturbing, is that when the tests were repeated with different people in different locations, the pressure of time had a massive effect. The speakers were purposefully made late, and when the speakers were rushing because they were late, only one of them stopped to help the man. The fact they were in a rush made them worse people in some way!
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Every Day is Earth Day
Source: http://www.riseearth.com/2016/01/what-is-directed-meditation-and-how-it.html
