Mantras, sometimes called holy names or prayer words, are increasingly included and studied as components in health and human services interventions. In this emerging field, the term "mantra" has been implicitly defined over several decades in a way that has been useful, largely shared across research teams, and historically resonant. However, confusion has arisen in how "mantra" is defined and used in a small fraction of recent publications that depart from longstanding usage. To provide needed guidance going forward for researchers, editors, reviewers, and practitioners, the present article discusses historical, cross-cultural, conceptual, and empirical background and proposes a definition of "mantra" for use in empirical research on mantra interventions: A mantra is a phrase or sound that has been repeated and sanctified over time within a spiritual tradition. Using this definition, we categorize several dozen empirical studies of mantra repetition interventions. Emphasizing well-established psychosocial processes such as priming and spreading activation, we explain theoretical and empirical bases for expecting repetition of mantras to enlist spiritual resources and provide added value for health and well-being, over and above the repetition of neutral non-mantra sounds or phrases. Although the term mantra should be used carefully in professional discourse, we allow that looser definitions can be acceptable in communications with intervention recipients, clients, and patients, parallel to recent recommendations for how to employ the term "spirituality." Directions for future research are suggested. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

什么是咒语？为从业者、研究人员和编辑提供指导。


咒语有时被称为圣名或祈祷词，越来越多地被纳入和研究作为健康和人类服务干预措施的组成部分。在这个新兴领域，“咒语”一词在几十年来一直以一种有用的方式被隐含地定义，在研究团队中很大程度上被共享，并且在历史上引起了共鸣。然而，在最近的一小部分出版物中，“口头禅”的定义和使用方式出现了混乱，这些出版物偏离了长期的用法。为了为研究人员、编辑、审稿人和从业者提供所需的指导，本文讨论了历史、跨文化、概念和经验背景，并提出了“咒语”的定义，用于咒语干预的实证研究：是一个在精神传统中随着时间的推移而被重复和神圣化的短语或声音。使用这个定义，我们对几十项咒语重复干预的实证研究进行了分类。强调完善的心理社会过程，例如启动和传播激活，我们解释了期望重复咒语以获取精神资源并为健康和福祉提供附加值的理论和经验基础，而不仅仅是中性非咒语声音的重复或短语。尽管“口头禅”这个术语应该在专业讨论中谨慎使用，但我们允许在与干预接受者、客户和患者的沟通中可以接受更宽松的定义，这与最近关于如何使用“灵性”一词的建议是一致的。提出了未来研究的方向。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。