Jul 03, 2025
Beliefs about Mindfulness: a comparative study
- philippine chachignon1,
- Emmanuelle Le Barbenchon1,
- Cécile antzer2,
- Lionel Dany1
- 1Aix-Marseille Université;
- 2Université de Bordeaux
External link: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0331021
Protocol Citation: philippine chachignon, Emmanuelle Le Barbenchon, Cécile antzer, Lionel Dany 2025. Beliefs about Mindfulness: a comparative study. protocols.io https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.n92ld6bxxg5b/v1
Manuscript citation:
Chachignon P, Barbenchon EL, Dantzer C, Dany L (2025) Mindfulness beyond secularization: Beliefs across meditators and non-meditators reflect a consensus on personal development over health and spirituality. PLOS One 20(9). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331021
License: This is an open access protocol distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Protocol status: Working
We use this protocol and it's working
Created: July 03, 2025
Last Modified: July 03, 2025
Protocol Integer ID: 221659
Keywords: mindfulness, beliefs, qualitative approach, health, motivations, beliefs about mindfulness, mindfulness, background mindfulness meditation, traditional buddhist form, association of the belief, possible differences in belief, belief, comparing meditator, classes of belief, meditator, sense belief, contents of belief, mm belief, limited research on mm belief, health behaviour, beliefs with each variable, psychological issue, different stance, psychological variable, sociodemographic characteristic, beliefs about mm scale, ethics, motivation for mm practice
Abstract
Abstract
Background
Mindfulness Meditation (MM) has followed a 2500-year-old trajectory, from its traditional Buddhist form to its modern
versions such as therapeutic protocols. Initially acclaimed for its efficacy in
addressing health and psychological issues, this trendy practice is also
debated due to potential adverse effects, loss of ethics or compliance with
neoliberal imperatives. Therefore, the question of the extent to which these
different stances are integrated into the common-sense beliefs is timely. Yet,
the limited research on MM beliefs either overlook exploring the content(s) of
the beliefs or comparing meditators with non-meditators.
Objective This study aimed to fill these gaps by
exploring the contents of beliefs, including what is missing in these contents,
and comparing possible differences in beliefs between meditators and
non-meditators. We examined the association of the beliefs with 4 categories of
variables: sociodemographic characteristics, practice and motivation for
practicing, health status and health behaviours, and psychological variables.
Methods
167 participants (n = 105 meditators) completed an online survey where they were
asked to produce 5 words that they associated with MM and to indicate their
valence. Subsequently, they took a questionnaire that included the
Self-Motivation for MM practice and the Beliefs about MM scales along with a
series of questions on their characteristics.
Results
817 free associations were generated, of which 65% were rated as positive. A
descending hierarchical classification analysis yielded 5 classes of beliefs,
which we labelled as “Body-based Relaxation”,
“Stereotyped Descriptions”, “Psychological and Affective Well-Being”, “Focus on
Inner-Self” and “Experience of MM”. Four classes were common to both
meditators and non-meditators. Different families of variables were associated
with the classes.
Conclusions Our findings highlight a consensus on MM as a beneficial tool for self-regulation,
self-awareness and self-knowledge, and an operant secularization process. The
association of the classes of beliefs with each variable is fully discussed.
Troubleshooting
Research procedure
Literature review on the representations and beliefs associated with mindfulness.
Design of the questionnaire (pre-tested by 10 individuals from various backgrounds) using a mixed-methods approach:
Open-ended questions: free associations with the stimulus word "Mindfulness".
Closed-ended questions: standardized scales (attitudes, beliefs, motivations) and behavioral/sociodemographic data.
Submission of the ethics application.
Online dissemination of the study and recruitment (via social networks, mailing lists, and mindfulness organizations).
Data collection and cleaning (exclusion of responses that are incomplete, suspicious, or indicate random answering).
Qualitative analysis (e.g., thematic analysis and prototypical analysis using IRaMuTeQ).
Quantitative analyses (e.g., descriptive statistics, T-Tests).
Writing of the report and preparation of publications.