Objectives

Social approach and avoidance goals—which refer to individual differences in the desire to pursue rewards versus avoid negative experiences in social relationships—have numerous implications for the health and quality of social relationships. Although endorsement of these goals largely arises from people’s pre-dispositions towards approach and avoidance, in this research, we proposed that meditation training has the potential to beneficially influence the extent to which people adopt approach and avoidance goals. Specifically, we hypothesized that individuals who were randomly assigned to receive training in mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation would report differences in social approach and avoidance goals, as compared with those in a wait-list control condition, and that these effects would be mediated by differences in positive and negative emotions.

Methods

To examine these hypotheses, we drew upon a community-based, randomized intervention study of 138 midlife adults, who were assigned to receive mindfulness training, loving-kindness training, or no training in meditation.

Results

As compared with the control condition, results demonstrated that loving-kindness training was directly associated with lower social avoidance goals, and indirectly associated with greater social approach goals, via enhanced positive emotion.

Conclusions

These results suggest loving-kindness meditation is a means by which people can beneficially influence their approach and avoidance tendencies, which likely plays an important role in enhancing their social relationships.

中文翻译：

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冥想训练会影响社交方法和回避目标吗？来自中年成人随机干预研究的证据

目标

社会方法和回避目标——指的是个体在追求奖励的愿望与避免社会关系中的负面经历方面的差异——对社会关系的健康和质量有许多影响。尽管对这些目标的认可在很大程度上源于人们对接近和回避的倾向，但在这项研究中，我们提出冥想训练有可能对人们采用接近和回避目标的程度产生有益的影响。具体来说，我们假设被随机分配接受正念或慈爱冥想训练的个体与等待名单控制条件下的个体相比，会报告社交方式和回避目标的差异，

方法

为了检验这些假设，我们对 138 名中年成年人进行了一项基于社区的随机干预研究，他们被分配接受正念训练、慈悲训练或不接受冥想训练。

结果

与对照条件相比，结果表明，慈爱训练与较低的社交回避目标直接相关，并通过增强的积极情绪与更大的社交接近目标间接相关。

结论

这些结果表明，慈爱冥想是人们可以有益地影响他们的接近和回避倾向的一种方式，这可能在增强他们的社会关系方面发挥重要作用。