Pulling Your Self Together: Meditation Promotes Congruence between Implicit and Explicit Self-Esteem

Sander L. Koole , Olesya Govorun , Clara Michelle Cheng , Marcello Gallucci

Self-reported or explicit self-esteem frequently conflicts with indirectly assessed, implicit self-esteem. The present research investigated whether meditation may reduce such inner conflicts by promoting congruence between implicit and explicit self-esteem. Relative to control conditions, meditation led to greater congruence between explicit self-esteem, assessed via self-report, and implicit self-esteem, indicated by name letter preference (Studies 1 and 2). Low implicit self-esteem was further associated with a slow-down of explicit self-evaluation (Study 2), an effect that mediated the greater congruence between implicit and explicit self-esteem in the meditation condition. These results suggest that meditation encourages people to rely more on intuitive feelings of self-worth.

Mots clés: (implicit) self-esteem; name letter preference; meditation; mindfulness

Domaines: Psychologie et comportements

Sander L. Koole, Olesya Govorun, Clara Michelle Cheng, Marcello Gallucci. Pulling Your Self Together: Meditation Promotes Congruence between Implicit and Explicit Self-Esteem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2009, 45 (6), pp.1220. ⟨10.1016/j.jesp.2009.05.018⟩. ⟨hal-00705627⟩