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Compassion-Based Meditation Quality Practice and Its Impact on the Positive Attitudes Toward Others

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Abstract

Objectives

The authors report on the initial development and validation of the Compassion Practice Quality Scale (CPQS), a measure to assess the quality of compassion-based meditation (CBM). It is conceptualized and operationalized via two factors measuring mental imagery and somatic perception/response.

Methods

The total sample was composed of 205 university students who underwent a CBM and completed pre-test/post-test assessment of compassion and related constructs. Results from a series of preliminary psychometric analyses of the CPQS were examined, including factor analysis, internal consistency, and convergent/discriminant validity.

Results

The data supported a 12-item and 10-item (without reference to gestures and self-instructions) CPQS of which imagery and somatic perception emerged as two significant reliable subscales, with Cronbach’s alpha values of .90 and .88 respectively. Practice quality factors assessed by the CPQS correlated in expected ways with fear of compassion, imagery variables, and self-criticism, as well as predicted compassion outcome (i.e., feeling positive attitudes toward others).

Conclusions

Our findings contribute to identifying two key components of high-quality meditation in CBM (i.e., mental imagery and somatic perception/response) for use in pedagogical development and further research and to offer a reliable self-report measure to assess them for the first time.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to CIBEROBN, an initiative of the ISCIII (ISC III CB06 03/0052) and Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) under AMABLE-VR (RTI2018-097835-A-I00).

Funding

This work was supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) under AMABLE-VR (RTI2018-097835-A-I00).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Personality, Evaluation, and Psychological Treatments, University of Valencia, Avd/Blasco Ibañez 21, 46010, Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Jaime Navarrete, Rocío Herrero, Rosa M. Baños & Ausiàs Cebolla

  2. Department of Psychology and Sociology, Faculty of Human Sciences and Education, University of Zaragoza, Huesca, Spain

    Daniel Campos

  3. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Aragón, IIS Aragón, Zaragoza, Spain

    Daniel Campos

  4. Universidad de Las Américas, Puebla, México

    Rebeca Diego-Pedro & Edgar González-Hernández

  5. CiberObn Pathophysiology of Obesity and Nutrition (CB06/03), Instituto Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

    Rosa M. Baños & Ausiàs Cebolla

Authors
  1. Jaime Navarrete
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  2. Daniel Campos
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  3. Rebeca Diego-Pedro
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  4. Edgar González-Hernández
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  5. Rocío Herrero
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  6. Rosa M. Baños
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  7. Ausiàs Cebolla
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Contributions

A.C. and D.C. developed the Compassion Practice Quality Scale and designed the study. A.C. and D.C. developed the compassion-based meditation which was recorded by A.C. E.G-H. and R.D-P. performed the recruitment. J.N. conducted the formal analyses and wrote the results section. A.C., J.N., and D.C. wrote the original draft. E.G-H., R.D-P., R.H., and R.B. collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ausiàs Cebolla.

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Ethics Statement

The current study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Valencia (Spain).

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Freely given, informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from participants.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Navarrete, J., Campos, D., Diego-Pedro, R. et al. Compassion-Based Meditation Quality Practice and Its Impact on the Positive Attitudes Toward Others. Mindfulness 12, 1940–1953 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-021-01652-2

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