Cognitive Orientation toward Positive Values in Advanced Participants of the TM and TM-Sidhi Program

Abstract

The results of two studies, with 15 and 10 college students practicing the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi program (ages: M = 28 yr.; M = 29 yr.), and 10 and 9 controls (ages: M = 22.9 yr.; M = 26.2 yr.), respectively, indicate that advanced participants of the TM and TM-Sidhi program may have a cognitive set oriented toward more positive values. Subjects in the TM-TM-Sidhi program exhibited a better recall of positively valued words than the control group in a long-term memory task (45 min.), and they needed fewer exposures to recognize positive than negative words at lower absolute thresholds than the controls in a tachistoscopic experiment. They appraised “significant others” more favorably than the control group on LaForge's Interpersonal Checklist, while self-appraisal was high in both groups. A third study of 11 college students, M age of 22.3 yr., yielded an inverse relationship between differential recognition thresholds for positive and negative affect terms on a tachistoscopic task and the reported experienced intensity of the corresponding affects. This suggests that enhanced perception of certain affect terms may be a function of more frequent experiences of those affects.