Effects of meditation practice on altruism, empathy, guilt, and depression among Theravada Buddhist

A group of 136 men and women self-identified as Theravada Buddhists were surveyed and compared to a group of 450 non-meditators on measures of empathy, altruism, guilt, depression, and Big-5 personality traits. Theravada Buddhists in the study were found to have significantly lower rates of separation and omnipotent responsibility guilt, empathic distress, neuroticism, depression, and altruism to friends and significantly higher measures of empathic concern, perspective taking, altruism to strangers, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and general factor of personality (GFP) than the general population sample. Intensity of meditation practice as determined by meditation experience, frequency, and duration was positively correlated with altruism to strangers and negatively correlated with omnipotence guilt, empathic concern, depression, and neuroticism. The influence of other versus self-focused goals was examined. Having other-focused goals (e.g. "for the benefit of all beings") for meditation was associated with significantly lower separation guilt, empathic distress, and neuroticism. The practice of loving-kindness meditation was not significantly correlated with any of the measures examined. Results are discussed in terms of possible physiological, psychological, and cultural factors. Implications of the current study are identified and suggestions for future research are provided.