Negative Expectations: A Comparative Study Before and After the Practice of Meditation

Abstract

Negative expectations arise when unfavourable outcomes are anticipated in life.  Over a period of time, this can cause unnecessary negativity, anxiety, discouragement, hopelessness etc., which may significantly impact the well-being of people and their ability to face challenges. Mindfulness meditation can help the practitioners to remain focused and peaceful without any negative effect on emotions. The study reported in this article was undertaken using a questionnaire among 100 meditators from yoga/meditation centres in Kozhikode District of Kerala State in India. The questionnaire contained the measure of negative expectations before and after the start of meditation practice, and the characteristics of the respondents, namely, sex, age, marital status, whether they had practiced meditation before joining the present meditation class, and whether they experienced health problems during the past six months. The results show that the mean score for negative expectations is less after starting meditation than before meditation with statistically significant difference in the scores, indicating that the respondents had less of negative expectations in life after they started practicing meditation. The range of scores before meditation was also comparatively high than after starting meditation, which again establishes less negative expectations after starting meditation practice. The lower score for the items related to negative expectation after meditation, when compared to before starting meditation, with statistically significant difference in the scores also helps to further substantiate the effect of meditation in reducing the negative expectations, namely, not able to see things ever going one’s way, often finding things to be out of control, expecting that if something bad could happen it probably will, not able to imagine getting what is wanted, feeling that usually more bad things are going to happen than good, and the negative expectation that things always seem to be happening that stop from getting anywhere in life. Elderly meditators reported less negative expectations than youngsters, with statistically significant difference in their scores. The effect of higher period of meditation in reducing negative expectations more is also evident from the study. The characteristics of the meditators, namely, marital status, whether done meditation before joining the present class, and whether experienced health problems during the past six months contribute to 62 % of the variation observed in the score for negative expectations after starting meditation practice, with a significant F value.  Unmarried meditators reported less negative expectations than married people, those who have done meditation before have less negative expectations, while health problems during the past six months has resulted in more negative expectations for the meditators. It will be worthwhile if yoga centres are also able to conduct studies related to yoga and meditation, in addition to the research undertaken by academic and research institutions in the country so that the transfer of useful results of these studies may motivate more people to start practicing these mind and body relaxing techniques.