People’s egos get bigger after meditation and yoga, says a new study

Re:People’s egos get bigger after meditation and yoga, says ... by rfugger on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @01:58PM (#17357863)

Even if yoga or meditation had diminished your ego (whatever you choose it to mean), would that make you less likely to answer affirmatively to a statement like, "Compared to the average, I'm relatively free from bias"? If you really were selfless, wouldn't you always answer "yes"? Or would you answer "no" because "the average" has no meaning once you realize oneness with everything? I'm not convinced it's a useful measure.

There may be other better questions on the inventory, but that's the example given in the article. I also noted that they didn't mention practitioners having scored higher on narcissism, but only on "self-enhancement". (I haven't read the actual study, so this could all just be bad reporting.)

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Re:People’s egos get bigger after meditation and yoga, says ... by _rpd on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @02:42PM (#17358373)

Here's the study ...

https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/420273/

Ego is measured by answering questions like ...

> “At the moment, I have high self-esteem” (1 = does not apply at all, 7 = applies completely).

I'm unconvinced that vague self-reports like this have any useful meaning.

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Re:People’s egos get bigger after meditation and yoga, says ... by adamtobey on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:07PM (#17375584)

I agree (having only read the article, not the study) - I think the overall premise that improvement in a skill is incompatible with ego reduction is simplistic. You can absolutely improve on something overall while perhaps regressing on some small part (Simpson's Paradox). It's like saying that no-one can be truly humble if they believe (but not brag!) they're more humble than average - they're probably just right about that and can still be an unassuming person all around.

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