Kindness is lesser preferable than happiness: Investigating interest in different effects of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations

Kindness is lesser preferable than happiness: Investigating interest in different effects of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Kindness is lesser preferable than happiness: Investigating interest in different effects of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations Yanhe DENG, Wen WANG, Taoyuan DU, Xianglong ZENG This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4459312/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 26 Apr, 2025 Read the published version in BMC Psychology → Version 1 posted 4 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The primary purpose of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations (LKCM) in Buddhism was the cultivation of kindness, but many modern LKCM trainings focused on happiness, and even used the “kindness for happiness” strategy that advocate cultivation of kindness for the benefit of happiness. This study investigated whether cultivating kindness was lesser desired than enhancing happiness for potential trainees, and it impacts on LKCM training. Study 1 recruited 583 university students, study 2 involved 1075 participants from a 4-week online LKCM training. The measures included interest in meditation trainings that focused on emotional happiness, kind attitudes and other effects. Two studies cohesively supported kind attitudes were the least desired effects, and study 2 showed that higher interest in meditations on Emotional Well-being predicted increases in personal happiness. In summary, this study provided first evidence that trainees’ preference on potential effects of LKCM existed and linked with effects of training. It suggested the hedonic bias in modern positive psychology is facilitated by trainees, and encouraged further attention in the philosophical and ethical issues in the trainings. The intervention program has been retrospectively registered with the PRS on May 17, 2024, under registration number NCT06424951. Loving-kindness Meditation Compassion Meditation Positive Psychology Philosophy Buddhism Hedonism Background With the prevalence of Mindfulness Meditation, the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations (LKCMs), which originated in Buddhism, have also received more attention in recent years. As the name indicates, the LKCMs aim to cultivate four prosocial attitudes, which are referred to as the “four immeasurables.” These are: loving kindness (unconditional friendliness), compassion (willing the suffering of others to cease), appreciative joy (happiness regarding others’ successes), and equanimity (a calm attitude toward others’ fate based on wisdom; Kraus & Sears, 2009; Zeng et al., 2015). Usually, LKCM practitioners silently repeat phrases of blessing for an imagined person, and the imagined person and blessing phrases are adjusted to cultivate different attitudes. For example, in compassion meditation, a practitioner will imagine a person in suffering and bless them with phrases like “may you be free from suffering”, while in appreciative joy meditation, the practitioner will imagine a happy person and bless them with phrases like “may you not lose what you gain,” to cultivate appreciative joy. Additionally, the target person to be blessed changes gradually from easy, such as oneself and one’s friends, to difficult, such as people one dislikes or all-beings (Zeng et al., 2015). Empirical research on the effects of LKCM has risen sharply in recent years (Galante et al., 2014). A series of studies has supported the fact that multi-week LKCM training can enhance positive attitudes and decrease negative attitudes towards oneself and others (e.g., Kang et al., 2015; Reddy et al., 2013). As a manifestation of kind attitudes, enhanced helping behaviors after LKCM training were also observed from studies in a range of settings, from economic games in a laboratory (Leiberg et al., 2011) to simulated daily-life situations (Condon et al., 2013). Beyond the basic function of cultivating kind attitudes, studies have further reported that LKCM also benefits practitioners’ emotional well-being. A meta-analysis reported that LKCM training could generate positive emotions (Zeng et al., 2015). Specifically, some studies emphasized that LKCMs generate more low-arousal positive emotions (e.g., calmness; Kearney et al., 2014), while other studies also reported an increase in medium-arousal positive emotions (e.g., happiness; Zeng et al., 2018). Many studies have also reported that LKCMs can reduce negative emotions, although these effects are less consistent than those for positive emotions (e.g., Fredrickson et al., 2008; Kok et al., 2013). Nowadays, LKCM trainings have been initially applied in treating several mental disorders such as depression or PTSD, and most of these applications are related to improvements in emotions and attitudes (see Shonin et al., 2015; Graser & Stangier, 2018 for a review). Additionally, some researchers have also explored the pragmatic functions of LKCM training that benefit one’s ability or resources in daily life; for example, enhancing emotional learning or building interpersonal resources (e.g., Hunsinger et al., 2013; Fredrickson et al., 2008). To summarize the extant research, the most researched outcomes are kind attitudes and emotional well-being, while their effectiveness in relation to other pragmatic benefits is also promising. In current psychological research, many training programs have been developed based on LKCM. These training programs emphasize different effects, which partially explain their differences in terms of components and structure. For example, Mindful Self-Compassion aims to enhance compassion for oneself (i.e., self-compassion), and group sessions and home practice both consistently target compassionate attitudes to oneself (Neff & Germer, 2013). Compassion Cultivation Training has been “explicitly designed as a general training program to enhance compassion” (p. 1116), but, in contrast to Mindful Self-Compassion, this practice focuses more on compassion for others, although compassion for oneself is also included (Jazaieri et al., 2013). In contrast to the trainings mentioned above that place more emphasis on compassion, some trainings emphasized the cultivation of happiness. For example, Heart of Joy was designed as a positive psychology training to enhance well-being, and uses the appreciative joy meditation to generate positive emotions (Zeng et al., 2018). Zeng et al. (2018) reported that participants were explicitly told during recruitment that the purpose of the training was to enhance well-being, and the didactic component in group sessions explicitly clarified that neither the cultivation of morality nor virtues was the primary concern. It is notable, however, that not all studies have clearly reported the primary purposes or target effects of their LKCM training. Nevertheless, kind attitudes and emotional well-being are the two most commonly cited target effects, with some trainings emphasizing one more than the other. While LKCM trainings to date have provided and emphasized different effects, little is known about the interest of potential trainees in those effects. The investigation of potential trainees’ interest is important for further understanding and improvement of LKCM research and practice. First, many previous articles have noted that the issue of participants’ self-selection impacts heavily on research into LKCM and other meditations (e.g., Mascaro et al., 2013; Weytens et al., 2014); thus, understanding participants’ reasons for joining LKCM trainings is important for the generalization of the findings. Furthermore, some researchers have argued that self-reported effects of LKCM trainings comprise more of an expectancy effect (e.g., Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013; Lumma et al., 2015). Considering that the purpose of some LKCM trainings is explicitly delivered during recruitment (e.g., Zeng et al., 2018), the expectancy effect may impact the outcomes more when the training purpose matches the participants’ interest. From the perspective of practice, matching the purpose of LKCM trainings with practitioners’ interest helps to secure best practice (Zeng et al., 2017a), and can also reduce the high dropout rate (e.g., Weytens et al., 2014; Mascaro et al., 2018). Notably, LKCM is not yet as widespread as other meditations like mindfulness meditation, and many people have the impression that meditation is a practice that leads to calm (Lumma et al., 2015). Thus, they may not be aware that meditations like LKCM aim to cultivate kind attitudes, which highlights the necessity to investigate people’s interest in those effects of LKCM. Empirically, no published study to date has compared people’s interest in different effects of LKCM trainings. In a recent study, researchers measured how participants were interested in learning compassion meditation and its associated five benefits (stress management, improved personal relationships, improved physical health, improved mental health, and becoming a better doctor). However, this study combined these measures as one total score rather than comparing the benefits (Mascaro et al., 2018). A previous study investigated the motivations behind practicing mindfulness meditation. The participants rated the importance of 10 proposed reasons for commencing mindfulness practice, and the results demonstrated the following order of importance: feel calmer, relaxation, reduce anxiety, emotion regulation, manage difficult thoughts, concentration, learning/curiosity, interpersonal relationships, reduce physical pain, and finally spirituality. Qualitative analysis based on an open question demonstrated that the reduction of negative experience was mentioned in 94.74% responses, while other reasons included well-being (31.05%), introduction by external source (28.42%), and religion/spirituality (6.32; Pepping et al., 2016). Thus, it is evident that most of the reasons, both those proposed by researchers and those qualitatively reported by participants, are related to one’s own emotions, which is consistent with the component (e.g., attention) and function (e.g., emotion regulation) of mindfulness meditation (Bishop et al., 2004). Notably, although kind attitudes and emotional well-being are not mutually exclusive, the prioritization and relationship between them are of philosophical importance. Confucian philosophy emphasizes the kindness rooted in human nature, and stresses pursuing righteousness which is related with kindness and justice rather than benefit (the so-called “righteousness-benefit debate”). Thus, it argues that kind attitudes like compassion are intrinsically valuable and come intuitively from human nature, while kind attitudes with consideration for other benefits are not admirable and may even be immoral (Feng, 1983). In Buddhism, the cultivation of kind attitudes (i.e., the four immeasurables) and the elimination of opposite attitudes (i.e., anger, hatred, envy, and attachment) are the primary purposes of LKCM, while emotional well-being and other pragmatic benefits are usually discussed only secondarily (Bodhi, 2012; Zeng et al., 2013). In particular, Mahayana Buddhism advocates that Buddhists should be devoted to relieving all-beings from suffering, even at their own expense (King, 1989). That is, in Buddhism, kind attitudes have inherent value and a higher priority than one’s own emotional well-being. In positive psychology, the hedonic tradition considers emotional well-being to be the most important value and the standard for well-being, while the eudaimonia tradition emphasizes the achievement of human potentials, values, and virtues, including kindness (Banicki, 2014). However, researchers have noted that the research and practice of positive psychology follows the hedonic tradition more, which is consistent with the prevalence of hedonic values in modern society (Joshanloo, 2014). Thus, one may be concerned as to whether potential LKCM trainees also demonstrate less interest in kind attitudes than in other benefits like emotional well-being. In sum, the current study aimed to investigate people’s interest in different effects of LKCM trainings, especially the comparison between kind attitudes and emotional well-being. It also explored how such interest were associated with effects of LKCM training. Such study not only benefit the research and practice of LKCM training, but also shed light on the reasons behind the hedonic trend of modern positive psychology in broad sense. Study 1 Interest in Different Effects of LKCM Training Method Aim of Study As an initial step, Study 1 intended to compare the interest in different effects of LKCM among a convenient sample of university students. In order to separate different effects and close to application in real setting, the study will measure participants’ interest in participating in proposed meditations, each of which aimed to generate one specific effect. The kind attitudes were represented by compassion for others, compassion for oneself, and appreciative joy for others, which were emphasized in the real LKCM trainings. The emotional well-being included increasing positive emotion, decreasing negative emotion and improving peacefulness, which were validated effects of LKCM. Other validated effects were also measured as fillers and used as additional explorations. The core hypothesis was that the interest in meditations on kind attitudes is significantly lower than interest in meditations on emotional well-being. Participants A total of 583 Chinese university students participated in the study (199 females, mean age = 20.36 years, SD = 1.15). Of these, 557 (95.5%) declared no religious belief, while 26 (4.5%) reported a belief in religions; 114 (19.6%) reported previous meditation experience, while 469 (80.4%) had no meditation experience. Materials The current study created a measure called Willingness to Participate in Meditation Trainings (WPMT). Participants rated their willingness to participate in nine meditation trainings that serve different purposes. Each meditation was rated by one item (“if the purpose of meditation training is to xxx, how much are you willing to participate?” where “xxx” indicates the purposes listed below) and was measured with a 100-mm Visual Analogue Scale (0 = totally unwilling to participate, 100 = totally willing to participate). The purpose of meditation trainings are: (1) “to enhance positive emotions (happiness, joy, blissfulness)” (2) “to decrease negative emotions (stress, anxiety, depression)”; (3) “to improve peaceful feelings (tranquility, ease, serenity)”; (4) “to cultivate compassion for others (when they feel pain)”; (5) “to cultivate compassion for oneself (when you feel pain)”; (6) “to cultivate appreciative joy for others (when they succeed)”; (7) “to heighten study or work efficacy”; (8) “to improve interpersonal harmony and relationships”; (9) “to improve the state of spirituality or pursue a spiritual life.” According to their content, these nine meditation trainings were grouped into three domains in the analysis below: (1) to (3) are considered Meditations for Emotional Well-being; (4) to (6) are considered Meditations for Kind Attitudes; and (7) to (9) are considered Meditations for Other Benefits. Of note, to match with real LKCM trainings (e.g., Zeng et al., 2018) and to make participants consider their responses in a more realistic way, the information provided proposed that all trainings would be four weeks long, free of charge, and located in the participants’ university. The WPMT measure generated by the authors is presented in full in the Supplemental Materials and its psychometric properties can be found in the Results section. Procedure Participants were recruited from two universities in Mainland China with the help of university staff. Those who voluntarily participated in the study answered the anonymous surveys in large classrooms. The informed consent was attached as the first page of the package, and each participant received a pen as a gift for their participation. Data analysis Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted with Mplus 7.4, and other analyses were conducted with SPSS 25.0. The EFA adopted principal components analysis and oblique rotation (PROMAX) since it was anticipated that these factors would be substantially correlated. The CFA used the maximum likelihood estimation, and the indexes included Root Mean Squared Error of Approximation (RMSEA, .90 as acceptable fit), and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR, <.08 as acceptable fit; Hu and Bentler, 1999). Chi-squared was also used for potential model comparison. Nine out of 592 initial cases were excluded due to non-serious answers, and in the remaining cases, the mean was utilized to interpolate into individuals’ missing responses. Results As a preliminary analysis, nine items of the WPMT were analyzed with EFA and CFA, the details of which are provided in the Supplementary Materials. Briefly, 300 randomly selected cases were used in EFA. Consistent with the expectancy in the Method section, the EFA resulted in three factors: Emotional Well-Being included meditations (1) to (3); Kind Attitudes included meditations (4) to (6); and Other Benefits included meditations (7) to (9) (see Method for details of items). The three-factor structure was tested by CFA with the remaining 283 cases. After correlating three pairs of item errors, all indexes were acceptable, as χ 2 / df (21) = 3.29, RMSEA = .07, CFI = .982, and SRMR = .029. The item loadings of the nine items ranged from .73 to .87 (all p s＜.001) and the correlations between the three factors ranged from .68 to .87. For all participants, Table 1 presents the average WPMT for the nine meditations and three factors, which indicate no extreme flooring or ceiling effects. The three factors of WPMT were compared using repeated measures ANOVA, controlling for gender, age, religious belief, and meditation experiences. The results indicate a significant main effect of gender ( F (1,556) =9.08, p = .003, η p 2 = .016), and a significant interaction between meditation groups (i.e., WPMT factors) and gender ( F (2,1112) =6.46, p = .002, η p 2 = .023); no other main effects or interactions were significant (all p s > 269). For the interaction between meditation groups and gender, subsequent simple effect analyses revealed a significant effect of factor both among males ( F (2,555) =315.01, p <.001, η p 2 = .532) and females ( F (2,555) =162.94, p <.001, η p 2 = .370). A post-hoc LSD test revealed that both males and females demonstrated lower scores in kind attitude than in the other two factors (all p s<.001). From another direction, males exhibited significantly higher willingness to participate in meditations on Emotional Well-being ( F (1,556) =18.47, p< .001, η p 2 = .032) and Other Benefits ( F (1,556) =4.10, p = .043, η p 2 = .007) than females, and a non-significant trend in Kind Attitudes ( F (1,556) =2.58, p = .109). Additionally, a more illustrative finding is that only a few participants demonstrated higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Emotional Well-being (n = 34, 5.83%), or higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Other Benefits (n = 15, 2.57%). The Supplementary Materials present the further comparisons between meditations under each group of three meditations. Discussion Study 1 listed nine proposed meditation training, and the CFA supported they could be successfully grouped into three types of benefit. Consistent with the core hypothesis, the WPMT on Kind Attitudes was significantly lower than WPMT on Emotional Well-being, as well as Other Benefits. In fact, only a few participants preferred Kind Attitudes to other benefits. Unexpectedly, the current study found that females exhibited lower WPMT than males, although the trend for Kind Attitudes did not reach statistical significance. A previous study also reported that females had a higher dropout rate from LKCM training than males, but that training was conducted in a military setting for weight control (Mantzios & Wilson, 2015), and thus differed from the current study in many ways. That is, many factors may influence the observed gender difference, and too few comparable previous studies have been conducted. As an initial investigation, the current study could not confirm whether the gender difference reflected certain stereotypes regarding meditations or meditators, or whether the reduced difference between genders implied that males felt that being compassionate mismatches with masculinity (Constantinople, 1973). These interesting possibilities are left for future studies. There was no difference in WPMT between people with and without previous meditation experience. This finding is similar to a previous study by Pepping et al. (2016), which demonstrated a large overlap in the reasons for commencing and continuing with mindfulness meditation. Study 1 did not collect the details of participants’ meditation experience, because it did not expect that university sample had much experience with LKCM or other meditations. Therefore, it was not possible to extract the impact of LKCM among all kinds of meditation practice in Study 1. Study 2 Interest in Different Effects and Their Relation with Results of Training Method Aim of Study Study 1 recruited university students, who did not necessarily participate a meditation training even they showed interest when respond to WPMT measure. Therefore, Study 2 adopted WPMT in a 21-day online LKCM training. This make sure all participants really took part in meditation training, and allowed further exploration on how participants’ WPMT were associated with the adherence and effects of training. To be more sensitive for the change during short training, the effects of training used state-like measures and still focused on two aspects: (1) personal happiness (happiness, sadness, peacefulness) which matched emotional well-being, and (2) interpersonal relationship (love, hate, gratitude) which reflected kind attitudes. The core hypotheses were that higher interest in meditations on Emotional Well-being and Kind attitudes predicted increases in personal happiness and interpersonal relationship, respectively. Participants A total of 1075 participants registered the training and finished the pre-training measures (785 males, mean age = 30.28, years, SD = 9.88). In total, 980(91.2%) declared no religious belief, while 95 (8.8%) reported a belief in religions, and 159(14.8%) reported that they had mediation experience. Among them, 243 participants finished the training and post-training measures (175 males, mean age = 30.09, years, SD = 10.76), 224(92.2%) declared no religious belief, while 19(7.8%) reported a belief in religions, and 38(15.6%) reported that they had mediation experience. The dropout rate (71.9%) was similar to a previous study using a 20-day online loving-kindness meditation intervention (Galante et al., 2014). Measures The measure of WPMT was basically the same with that in Study 1, and it directly asked the interests in the current 21-day meditation training. The measure for effects of training used word lists, which measured the frequency of 10 types of experience in the past week, with three items for each type. Specifically, three types focused on personal happiness: Happiness (delighted, happy, satisfied), Sadness (blue, gloomy, sad; score reversed), Peacefulness (calm, peaceful, serene). Another three types focused on interpersonal relationship: Love (love, care, friendly); Hate (envy, hate, hostile; score reversed); Gratitude (appreciated, grateful, thankful). The remaining four types were used as fillers: Hope (encouraged, hopeful, optimistic); Stress (nervous, overwhelmed, stressed; score reversed); Fear (afraid, fearful, scared; score reserved); Excitement (elation, enthusiasm, excitement), which means the higher the score in fillers, the better the effect. All words were presented in pseudo-random way and measured from 1 (never) to 5 (always) points. Such measures had been validated and all words were adopted from previous studies (Fredrickson et al., 2003; Zeng et al., 2017). Coefficients of α each component were: 0.572 (personal happiness), 0.579 (interpersonal relationship), 0.575 (fillers). Procedure The online LKCM training was delivered as a free intervention for the public to help people cope with COVID-19. It was described as a ‘21-day course of positive psychological meditation’ without emphasis on emotional well-being or kind attitudes. The criteria of inclusion required participants to be Chinese-speaking adults without previous or current mental disorder, which was confirmed by self-report in the consent form. For ethical considerations, all participants got access to the training immediately after finishing the consent form and the pre-training measures, and no waitlist or placebo was used. The post-training measures was conducted immediately after the meditation practice on the last day. As described in the consent form, participants who did not continue to practice meditation for 5 consecutive days were considered as quit, and 10% of completers received 400 RMB as a reward after a random draw. All data used in the current article was reported for the first time, and other data will be reported elsewhere as they serve other purposes. The training was presented on the web application, and the participants followed the recorded instructions to practice meditation for 12 to 15 minutes every day. Once participants finished the component for the current day, new components were available the next day. The first day uses breathing meditation to learn the basic meditation principles, and the remaining 20 days practice LKCM, which were equally divided into 4 sections of 5 days: The first two sections involved loving-kindness meditation for oneself and close ones. The third section turned to appreciative joy meditation for oneself and close ones, and the fourth section further added appreciative joy meditation for neutral others. Results Consistent with Study 1, the nine items of WPMT resulted in three factors, and the details of CFA were presented in Supplemental Materials. The three factors of WPMT were compared using repeated measures ANOVA, controlling for gender, age, religious belief, and meditation experiences. The results revealed that participants demonstrated lower scores in Kind Attitudes ( M =76.32, SD =22.46) than Emotional Well-being ( M =86.98, SD = 15.12) and Other Benefits ( M =86.42, SD =16.69), and still only a few participants demonstrated higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Emotional Well-being (n = 122, 11.34%), or higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Other Benefits (n = 117, 10.88%), which were similar to study 1. The results were different from study 1 was that the comparison between three factors demonstrated a marginal significant interaction between WPMT factors and gender ( F =2.710, p = .073, η p 2 = .003). Further exploration showed that participants in study 2 had higher interest than those in study 1 on all three factors (all ps 0.05). As presented in Table 2, pre-post comparisons showed the training significantly improved personal happiness, interpersonal relationship and fillers. As for the correlations between effects and WPMT, the results find no significant correlations between any effects and WPMT with original data (see Table 3). Considering the WPMT might suffer from extreme values and non-normal distribution, further exploration standardizing WPMT, personal happiness, interpersonal relationship and fillers. As shown in Table 3, the results showed a significant but low positive correlation between WPMT on emotional well-being and training effects on personal happiness ( r = 0.152, p = 0.009) and fillers ( r = 0.161, p = 0.006), but no significant correlations between interpersonal relationship and WPMT. Therefore, the hypothesis was partly substantiated. Discussion With the sample who participated real LKCM training, Study 2 confirmed the finding of Study 1, that cultivating kind attitudes are lesser attractive than improving emotional well-being. Of note, although the recruitment did not emphasize emotional well-being or kind attitudes, participants nevertheless had their expectation about the training. For example, people without much knowledge on meditation might consider the major function of meditation is calming the mind, or the major concern of people during stressful COVID-19 background is to seek for improving emotion. These factors might lead to selection bias, that people who seek for emotional well-being involved in this study. However, if such a selection bias existed, this just supported our basic argument, that people have certain preference in effects of meditation and it will impact their participation. More importantly, the consistent findings in Study 1 implied that the lesser preference to kind attitudes also existed among other sample, and thus the finding of lesser preference on kind attitudes should not be simply attributed to the special background in study 2. Additionally, study 2 ensured that all participants really want to participate. Comparing study 1 with study 2, participants in study 2 scored higher than those in participants in study 1 on all three factors. In other words, participants who really wanted to participate in the intervention did have a higher interest in these three factors of WPMT, which also provided some validation for the measures. Additionally, the study 2 did not replicate the gender differences in study 1. It seems that the gender difference was not robust and future study could explore it with clear hypothesis. More importantly, the results indicated that WPMT on Emotional Well-being exhibited a significant positive correlation with effects on personal happiness and fillers, which provided supportive evidence for the core hypothesis that WPMT could predict effects of training. Additionally, the non-significant results based on original data suggested that the measures of WPMT was not very sensitive, which requires further optimization in the future. It is also notable that current study did not manipulate WPMT, and thus the finding is essentially correlational rather than causal. Nevertheless, current finding provided important evidence that the pre-existed individual difference on WPMT could predict effect of training. This supported that WPMT is not only a preference for potential or assumed meditation trainings, but has its relevance to what happens in real meditation trainings. General Discussion The current study provided an initial investigation of people’s interest in typical effects of LKCM trainings. Two studies cohesively supported that Kind Attitudes were lesser preferable that Emotional well-being and also other known effects of LKCM, which were quite stable across university students and people who really participated LKCM training. More importantly, the interest in different effects could also predict the effects of training. From perspective of scientific research, previous studies had reported trainees’ interest and other psychological variables could predicted the adherence and meditation practice during LKCM training (Mascaro et al., 2013; Mascaro et al., 2018), and current study further detected pre-existed interest in meditation also impacted the effects. All of these evidences highlighted that the findings in studies on LKCM training might be biased due to self-selection. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that researchers measure the pre-training interest, motivation, and expectancy of participants and clearly report how trainings are delivered to practitioners (e.g., delivered as positive psychology trainings to improve well-being; Zeng et al., 2018), which are useful for evaluating the expectancy effects and generalizability of results. From perspective of practice, scholars have highlighted the importance to match the components of interventions with the needs of trainees, especially considering LKCM and other mindfulness-based interventions have multiple components that serve for different purposes (Zeng et al., 2018). The new measurements developed in the current study help researchers and practitioners to better understand the interest of potential trainees. Furthermore, the finding that kind attitudes are lesser attractive than emotional well-being and other benefits highlighted the hedonic trend in practice. As introduced at the beginning, the cultivation of kind attitudes is the primary purpose of LKCM trainings in Buddhism (Zeng et al., 2013), and the doctrine of Buddhism also attaches more importance to kindness toward all-beings than to one’s own happiness (King, 1989). That is, the preference among potential practitioners differs from the core value system in traditional LKCM trainings. This may be explained with the observation that modern society follows hedonic values more. That is, happiness (i.e., emotional well-being) and those things that are considered to effectively generate happiness (i.e., other benefits) are more valuable, while kind attitudes seem less valuable (Joshanloo, 2014). Alternatively, one may claim that most people today are more self-centered, and thus have more interest in self-beneficial purposes like enjoyment of happiness or enhancing ability, in comparison with kindness that benefits others. However, the kind attitudes measured in WPMT also included self-compassion, a kind attitude toward self. Thus, the self-centeredness seems not the best explanation for the finding. More importantly, be it hedonic value or self-centeredness, both explanations involve the conflict between practitioners’ considerations and Buddhist values. Scholars had pointed out that the positive psychology had hedonic trend (Joshanloo, 2014), and the current study showed this may partially be facilitated by the “market” or culture background, as the trainees or public also showed more interest in improving emotional well-being than cultivating kind attitudes. While current empirical data focused on participant’s value, the current study also inspire the researchers and practitioners to consider the purpose of their LKCM trainings and the role of kind attitudes. That is, whether cultivation of kind attitudes is the intrinsic purpose or serves as the tool for other benefits. Although kind attitudes and other benefits do not conflict with each other, a clear answer to the role of kind attitudes is important for practice in some cases. For example, LKCM has been considered a promising practice for the cultivation of or education in morality (e.g., Bankard, 2015; Zeng, 2016). Some scholars have also mentioned the idea of “kindness for happiness”; this means attracting people who are not interested in kind attitudes with other benefits like increasing positive emotions, or in general, to advocate other-focused kindness for the sake of self-focused benefits (Zeng, 2016). The current study supports that emotional well-being is indeed more attractive than kind attitudes. However, whether this “kindness for happiness” idea distorts the virtues as claimed by Confucianism requires further discussion. Furthermore, Zeng et al. (2018) argued that mindfulness-based interventions, especially those integrating LKCM, should clarify the implicit value judgments delivered in the interventions, in order to respect the cultural background and choice of trainees. Therefore, it is important for researchers and practitioners to clarify the purpose of LKCM and the role of kind attitudes in their interventions. Limitations and Future Direction While the current study has provided an initial investigation into interest in different effects of LKCM trainings, several limitations are worth noting. Firstly, the exploratory nature of the current study and the length of the questionnaire limit the validity and comprehensiveness of the measures. Although the measures generated in the current study demonstrate good psychometric properties and resulted in reasonable findings, their validity requires further confirmation. Therefore, future studies could consider using more comprehensive measures for better investigations. Secondly, Study 2 only measured WPMT in pre-training measures. Previous studies reported that LKCM training changed participants’ value (value higher for low-arousal positive emotion; Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013), and future studies could investigate whether LKCM trainings can change one’s interest in different effects. Thirdly, the sample in the current study are all Chinese, and the generalizability of the findings should be treated with caution. A study reported spiritual practice is associated with better mental health among American and Indian samples but worse mental health among a Chinese sample (McClintock et al., 2016), which suggested that cultural difference is important when discussing interest in meditation trainings. However, positive psychologists pointed out that Western culture valued more on emotional well-being than Eastern culture (Joshanloo, 2014), and thus we believed the findings that kind attitudes are lesser attractive should also stand still in Western culture, although it nevertheless worthies for empirical exploring. Despite these limitations, the current study has noted the important phenomenon whereby kind attitudes are the core of LKCM, but are less appealing for potential trainees. It not only provided an initial exploration of the interests of potential trainees, but also called for more attention to the purposes and ethical issues of LKCM trainings. Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by IRB in Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Consent for publication ： Not applicable. Availability of data and materials: The datasets are available from https://osf.io/txzwa/?view_only=8deb8d8d774e497e86c0e05718e68e83. Competing interest: The authors have no competing interests to disclose. Funding ： This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32200896), the Beijing Municipal Education Commission (KM202210028001). Authors’ Contribution: YD and XZ designed the study and collected data, YD and WW analyzed the data. All authors discussed the findings and wrote the article. Acknowledgements: Not applicable. References Banicki, K. (2014). Positive psychology on character strengths and virtues. A disquieting suggestion. New Ideas in Psychology , 33 (1), 21-34. Bankard, J. (2015). Training emotion cultivates morality: How loving-kindness meditation hones compassion and increases prosocial behavior. Journal of religion and health , 54 (6), 2324-2343. Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., et al. (2004). Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice , 11 , 230–241. Bodhi, B. (Ed.). (2012). A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Ācariya Anuruddha . Pariyatti. http://store.pariyatti.org/Comprehensive-Manual-of-Abhidhamma-A--PDF-eBook_p_4362.html Condon, P., Desbordes, G., Miller, W. B., & DeSteno, D. (2013). Meditation increases compassionate responses to suffering. Psychological science , 24 (10), 2125-2127. Condon, P., & Barrett, L. F. (2013). Conceptualizing and experiencing compassion. Emotion , 13 (5), 817-821. Constantinople, A. (1973). Masculinity-femininity: An exception to a famous dictum?. Psychological Bulletin , 80 (5), 389-407. Feng, Y. (1983). A history of Chinese philosophy (Vol. 1) . Princeton University Press. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56 (3), 218-226. Fredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M., Waugh, C. E., & Larkin, G. R. (2003). What good are positive emotions in crisis? A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84 (2), 365–376. https:// doi. org/ 10.1037/ 0022- 3514.84.2.365 Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 95 (5), 1045-1062. Galante, J., Galante, I., Bekkers, M. J., & Gallacher, J. (2014). Effect of kindness-based meditation on health and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 82 (6), 1101-1114. Graser, J., & Stangier, U. (2018). Compassion and Loving-Kindness Meditation: An Overview and Prospects for the Application in Clinical Samples. Harvard review of psychiatry, 26 (4), 201-215. Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional critia versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling , 6 , 1-55. Hunsinger, M., Livingston, R., & Isbell, L. (2013). The impact of loving-kindness meditation on affective learning and cognitive control. Mindfulness, 4 (3), 275-280. Jazaieri, H., Jinpa, G. T., McGonigal, K., Rosenberg, E. L., Finkelstein, J., Simon-Thomas, E., ... & Goldin, P. R. (2013). Enhancing compassion: A randomized controlled trial of a compassion cultivation training program. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14 (4), 1113-1126. Joshanloo, M. (2014). Eastern conceptualization of happiness: Fundamental differences with Western views. Journal of Happiness Study, 15 , 475-493. Kang, Y., Gray, J. R., & Dovidio, J. F. (2015). The head and the heart: Effects of understanding and experiencing lovingkindness on attitudes toward the self and others. Mindfulness , 6 (5), 1063-1070. Kearney, D. J., McManus, C., Malte, C. A., Martinez, M. E., Felleman, B., & Simpson, T. L. (2014). Loving-kindness meditation and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Medical care, 52 , S32-S38. King, W. L. (1989). Buddhist Self-World Theory and Buddhist Ethics. The Eastern Buddhist, 22 (2), 14-26. Kok, B. E., Coffey, K. A., Cohn, M. A., Catalino, L. I., Vacharkulksemsuk, T., Algoe, S. B., ... & Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone. Psychological Science , 24 (7), 1123-1132. Koopmann-Holm, B., Sze, J., Ochs, C., & Tsai, J. L. (2013). Buddhist-inspired meditation increases the value of calm. Emotion , 13 (3), 497-505. Kraus, S., & Sears, S. (2009). Measuring the immeasurables: Development and initial validation of the Self-Other Four Immeasurables (SOFI) scale based on Buddhist teachings on loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Social Indicators Research , 92 (1), 169-181. Leiberg, S., Klimecki, O., & Singer, T. (2011). Short-term compassion training increases prosocial behavior in a newly developed prosocial game. PloS one , 6 (3), e17798. Lumma, A. L., Kok, B. E., & Singer, T. (2015). Is meditation always relaxing? Investigating heart rate, heart rate variability, experienced effort and likeability during training of three types of meditation. International Journal of Psychophysiology , 97 (1), 38-45. Mascaro, J. S., Kelley, S., Darcher, A., Negi, L. T., Worthman, C., Miller, A., & Raison, C. (2018). Meditation buffers medical student compassion from the deleterious effects of depression. The Journal of Positive Psychology , 13 (2), 133-142. Mascaro, J. S., Rilling, J. K., Negi, L. T., & Raison, C. L. (2013). Pre-existing brain function predicts subsequent practice of mindfulness and compassion meditation. Neuroimage , 69 , 35-42. Mantzios, M., & Wilson, J. C. (2015). Exploring mindfulness and mindfulness with self-compassion-centered interventions to assist weight loss: theoretical considerations and preliminary results of a randomized pilot study. Mindfulness , 6 (4), 824-835. McClintock, C. H., Lau, E., & Miller, L. (2016). Phenotypic dimensions of spirituality: implications for mental health in China, India, and the United States. Frontiers in Psychology , 7 , 1600. Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self‐compassion program. Journal of Clinical Psychology , 69 (1), 28-44. Pepping, C. A., Walters, B., Davis, P. J., & O’Donovan, A. (2016). Why do people practice mindfulness? An investigation into reasons for practicing mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness , 7 (2), 542-547. Reddy, S. D., Negi, L. T., Dodson-Lavelle, B., Ozawa-de Silva, B., Pace, T. W., Cole, S. P., ... & Craighead, L. W. (2013). Cognitive-Based Compassion Training: a promising prevention strategy for at-risk adolescents. J ournal of Child and Family Studies , 22 (2), 219-230. Shonin, E., Van Gordon, W., Compare, A., Zangeneh, M., & Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Buddhist-derived loving-kindness and compassion meditation for the treatment of psychopathology: a systematic review. Mindfulness , 6 (5), 1161-1180. Van Gordon, W., Shonin, E., & Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Towards a second generation of mindfulness-based interventions. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry , 49 (7), 591-592. Weytens, F., Luminet, O., Verhofstadt, L. L., & Mikolajczak, M. (2014). An integrative theory-driven positive emotion regulation intervention. PLoS One , 9 (4), e95677. Zeng, X. (2016). Loving-kindness Meditation: A Buddhist Way to Cultivate Confucian Benevolence? Presented at the 31st International Congress of Psychology (ICP2016), 28th July, 2016, Yokohama, Japan. Zeng, X., Chan, V. Y., Liu, X., Oei, T. P., & Leung, F. Y. (2017a). The four immeasurables meditations: differential effects of appreciative joy and compassion meditations on emotions. Mindfulness , 8 (4), 949-959. Zeng, X., Chan, V. Y., Oei, T. P., Leung, F. Y., & Liu, X. (2017c). Appreciative Joy in Buddhism and Positive Empathy in Psychology: How Do They Differ? Mindfulness , https:// doi. org/10.1007/s12671-017-0690-5. Zeng, X., Chiu, C., Wang, R., Oei, T., & Leung, F. (2015). The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review. Frontier in Psychology , https:// doi. org/ 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01693 Zeng, X. & Deng, Y. (2018). Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Fears of Compassion Scales. Manuscript in Preparation. Zeng, X., Li, M., Zhang, B., & Liu, X. (2015). Revision of the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale for measuring awareness and equanimity in Goenka’s Vipassana Meditation with Chinese Buddhists. Journal of Religion and Health , 54 (2), 623-637. Zeng, X., Liao, R., Zhang, R., Oei, T. P., Yao, Z., Leung, F. Y., & Liu, X. (2017b). Development of the Appreciative Joy Scale. Mindfulness , 8 (2), 286-299. Zeng, X., Liu, S., & Liu, X. (2013). The application and empirical studies on loving-kindness meditation from psychological perspective. Advances in Psychological Science, 21 (8), 1466-1472. Zeng, X., Wang, R., Oei, T. P., & Leung, F. Y. (2018). Heart of joy: A randomized controlled trail evaluating the effect of an Appreciative Joy Meditation training on subjective well-being and attitudes. Mindfulness , 10 (3), 506-515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0992-2 Tables Table 1. Means and standard deviations of willingness to participate different meditations in study 1 and study 2 . Willingness to participate in meditation training Study 1(M ± SD) Study 2(M ± SD) Kind attitudes 52.39±24.85 76.32±22.46 Compassion for others 54.37±27.55 73.14±27.07 Compassion for self 45.16±30.51 80.28±23.93 Appreciative joy for others 57.62±27.11 75.54±24.90 Emotional well-being 76.74±21.06 86.98±15.12 Positive emotions 76.97±23.89 86.36±17.80 Negative emotions 77.83±23.62 87.02±18.99 Peaceful feelings 75.42±24.59 87.56±18.32 Other Benefits 80.55±19.47 86.42±16.69 Study efficacy 82.25±20.94 89.37±16.72 Interpersonal harmony 80.75±21.4 84.53±20.87 Spiritual status 78.64±23.54 85.34±20.52 Table 2. Results of pre-test and post-test data and paired-sample t-tests Pre (M ± SD) Post(M±SD) t p d Personal happiness 29.34±5.62 33.67±5.40 -3.94 0.00 -4.33 Happiness 2.88±0.63 3.18±0.73 -6.48 0.00 -0.30 Sadness 2.41±0.71 1.86±0.66 11..02 0.00 0.55 Peacefulness 3.17±0.83 3.65±0.82 -9.21 0.00 -0.42 Interpersonal relationship 31.85±5.38 34.62±5.48 -1.96 0.00 -2.77 Love 3.35±0.75 3.60±0.80 -5.16 0.00 -0.25 Hate 1.79±0.69 1.43±0.57 8.74 0.00 0.37 Gratitude 3.06±0.85 3.37±0.90 -5.60 0.00 -0.31 Fillers 39.77±6.94 44.99±6.52 3.11 0.00 -5.23 Hope 3.03±0.80 3.43±0.86 -8.31 0.00 -0.40 Stress 2.66±0.79 2.04±0.70 12.47 0.00 0.62 Excitement 3.02±0.71 3.44±0.78 -8.84 0.00 -0.42 Fear 1.99±0.79 1.57±0.63 8.62 0.00 0.42 Table 3. The correlation(sig) between Emotional well-being and personal happiness, and the correlation between Kind Attitudes and interpersonal relationship Zscore(ChangeEMOPH) Zscore(ChangeEMOIR) Zscore(ChangeEMOFL) Change PH Change IR Zscore(EW) -0.152**(0.009) -0.106(0.050) -0.161**(0.006) Zscore(KA) -0.066(0.153) -0.089(0.084) -0.053(0.207) EW - KA -0.035(0.585) 0.024(0.726) Note: EW represents Emotional Well-being, KA represents Kind Attitudes, PH represents personal happiness, IR represents interpersonal relationship, FL represents fillers, Zscore means standardization, Change means Changes in before and after testing Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 26 Apr, 2025 Read the published version in BMC Psychology → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 24 May, 2024 Submission checks completed at journal 23 May, 2024 Editor assigned by journal 23 May, 2024 First submitted to journal 22 May, 2024 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4459312","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":306390352,"identity":"9bc42a1d-65e9-4caf-9fcd-03e6fb0fa602","order_by":0,"name":"Yanhe DENG","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Capital Normal University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yanhe","middleName":"","lastName":"DENG","suffix":""},{"id":306390353,"identity":"4f4b8820-edd9-42dd-93c1-4eb32b58cb3c","order_by":1,"name":"Wen WANG","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Hubei University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Wen","middleName":"","lastName":"WANG","suffix":""},{"id":306390354,"identity":"e1a3678f-e4ec-4626-b6a1-902d2f1b2e1c","order_by":2,"name":"Taoyuan DU","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Beijing Normal University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Taoyuan","middleName":"","lastName":"DU","suffix":""},{"id":306390355,"identity":"d3ce1d9f-2da5-426b-a7c2-d0f2d5504282","order_by":3,"name":"Xianglong ZENG","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAuElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYNCCigNgSoIELWdI1sLYRooWg/OHjz38Ou9OnsEB5oO3eRjs8ghqkWw4lm4su+1ZscEBtmRrHobkYoJa+Bl7zKQltx1O3HCAx0yah+FAYgMhLWzM/N+kJeeAtAAZRGnhZ+Nhk/zYALaFjTgtkj1sZtIMx54lzjzMZmw5xyCZsBZgiD2T/FFzJ7HvePPDG28q7AhrAQFmHjAJNoEY9UDA+INIhaNgFIyCUTBCAQAoQTvcw3h1PQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Beijing Normal University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Xianglong","middleName":"","lastName":"ZENG","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-05-22 08:22:13","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4459312/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4459312/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02771-4","type":"published","date":"2025-04-26T15:58:16+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":81570328,"identity":"ebe997de-0ae6-403d-baaf-d601ea5dc927","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-04-28 16:13:16","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":689990,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4459312/v1/fe99d798-8eed-4489-9684-46301b631b47.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Kindness is lesser preferable than happiness: Investigating interest in different effects of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations","fulltext":[{"header":"Background","content":"\u003cp\u003eWith the prevalence of Mindfulness Meditation, the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations (LKCMs), which originated in Buddhism, have also received more attention in recent years. As the name indicates, the LKCMs aim to cultivate four prosocial attitudes, which are referred to as the \u0026ldquo;four immeasurables.\u0026rdquo; These are: loving kindness (unconditional friendliness), compassion (willing the suffering of others to cease), appreciative joy (happiness regarding others\u0026rsquo; successes), and equanimity (a calm attitude toward others\u0026rsquo; fate based on wisdom; Kraus \u0026amp; Sears, 2009; Zeng et al., 2015). Usually, LKCM practitioners silently repeat phrases of blessing for an imagined person, and the imagined person and blessing phrases are adjusted to cultivate different attitudes. For example, in compassion meditation, a practitioner will imagine a person in suffering and bless them with phrases like \u0026ldquo;may you be free from suffering\u0026rdquo;, while in appreciative joy meditation, the practitioner will imagine a happy person and bless them with phrases like \u0026ldquo;may you not lose what you gain,\u0026rdquo; to cultivate appreciative joy. Additionally, the target person to be blessed changes gradually from easy, such as oneself and one\u0026rsquo;s friends, to difficult, such as people one dislikes or all-beings (Zeng et al., 2015).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEmpirical research on the effects of LKCM has risen sharply in recent years (Galante et al., 2014). A series of studies has supported the fact that multi-week LKCM training can enhance positive attitudes and decrease negative attitudes towards oneself and others (e.g., Kang et al., 2015; Reddy et al., 2013). As a manifestation of kind attitudes, enhanced helping behaviors after LKCM training were also observed from studies in a range of settings, from economic games in a laboratory (Leiberg et al., 2011) to simulated daily-life situations (Condon et al., 2013). Beyond the basic function of cultivating kind attitudes, studies have further reported that LKCM also benefits practitioners\u0026rsquo; emotional well-being. A meta-analysis reported that LKCM training could generate positive emotions (Zeng et al., 2015). Specifically, some studies emphasized that LKCMs generate more low-arousal positive emotions (e.g., calmness; Kearney et al., 2014), while other studies also reported an increase in medium-arousal positive emotions (e.g., happiness; Zeng et al., 2018). Many studies have also reported that LKCMs can reduce negative emotions, although these effects are less consistent than those for positive emotions (e.g., Fredrickson et al., 2008; Kok et al., 2013). Nowadays, LKCM trainings have been initially applied in treating several mental disorders such as depression or PTSD, and most of these applications are related to improvements in emotions and attitudes (see Shonin et al., 2015; Graser \u0026amp; Stangier, 2018 for a review). Additionally, some researchers have also explored the pragmatic functions of LKCM training that benefit one\u0026rsquo;s ability or resources in daily life; for example, enhancing emotional learning or building interpersonal resources (e.g., Hunsinger et al., 2013; Fredrickson et al., 2008). To summarize the extant research, the most researched outcomes are kind attitudes and emotional well-being, while their effectiveness in relation to other pragmatic benefits is also promising.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn current psychological research, many training programs have been developed based on LKCM. These training programs emphasize different effects, which partially explain their differences in terms of components and structure. For example, Mindful Self-Compassion aims to enhance compassion for oneself (i.e., self-compassion), and group sessions and home practice both consistently target compassionate attitudes to oneself (Neff \u0026amp; Germer, 2013). Compassion Cultivation Training has been \u0026ldquo;explicitly designed as a general training program to enhance compassion\u0026rdquo; (p. 1116), but, in contrast to Mindful Self-Compassion, this practice focuses more on compassion for others, although compassion for oneself is also included (Jazaieri et al., 2013). In contrast to the trainings mentioned above that place more emphasis on compassion, some trainings emphasized the cultivation of happiness. For example, Heart of Joy was designed as a positive psychology training to enhance well-being, and uses the appreciative joy meditation to generate positive emotions (Zeng et al., 2018). Zeng et al. (2018) reported that participants were explicitly told during recruitment that the purpose of the training was to enhance well-being, and the didactic component in group sessions explicitly clarified that neither the cultivation of morality nor virtues was the primary concern. It is notable, however, that not all studies have clearly reported the primary purposes or target effects of their LKCM training. Nevertheless, kind attitudes and emotional well-being are the two most commonly cited target effects, with some trainings emphasizing one more than the other.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile LKCM trainings to date have provided and emphasized different effects, little is known about the interest of potential trainees in those effects. The investigation of potential trainees\u0026rsquo; interest is important for further understanding and improvement of LKCM research and practice. First, many previous articles have noted that the issue of participants\u0026rsquo; self-selection impacts heavily on research into LKCM and other meditations (e.g., Mascaro et al., 2013; Weytens et al., 2014); thus, understanding participants\u0026rsquo; reasons for joining LKCM trainings is important for the generalization of the findings. Furthermore, some researchers have argued that self-reported effects of LKCM trainings comprise more of an expectancy effect (e.g., Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013; Lumma et al., 2015). Considering that the purpose of some LKCM trainings is explicitly delivered during recruitment (e.g., Zeng et al., 2018), the expectancy effect may impact the outcomes more when the training purpose matches the participants\u0026rsquo; interest. From the perspective of practice, matching the purpose of LKCM trainings with practitioners\u0026rsquo; interest helps to secure best practice (Zeng et al., 2017a), and can also reduce the high dropout rate (e.g., Weytens et al., 2014; Mascaro et al., 2018). Notably, LKCM is not yet as widespread as other meditations like mindfulness meditation, and many people have the impression that meditation is a practice that leads to calm (Lumma et al., 2015). Thus, they may not be aware that meditations like LKCM aim to cultivate kind attitudes, which highlights the necessity to investigate people\u0026rsquo;s interest in those effects of LKCM.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEmpirically, no published study to date has compared people\u0026rsquo;s interest in different effects of LKCM trainings. In a recent study, researchers measured how participants were interested in learning compassion meditation and its associated five benefits (stress management, improved personal relationships, improved physical health, improved mental health, and becoming a better doctor). However, this study combined these measures as one total score rather than comparing the benefits (Mascaro et al., 2018). A previous study investigated the motivations behind practicing mindfulness meditation. The participants rated the importance of 10 proposed reasons for commencing mindfulness practice, and the results demonstrated the following order of importance: feel calmer, relaxation, reduce anxiety, emotion regulation, manage difficult thoughts, concentration, learning/curiosity, interpersonal relationships, reduce physical pain, and finally spirituality. Qualitative analysis based on an open question demonstrated that the reduction of negative experience was mentioned in 94.74% responses, while other reasons included well-being (31.05%), introduction by external source (28.42%), and religion/spirituality (6.32; Pepping et al., 2016). Thus, it is evident that most of the reasons, both those proposed by researchers and those qualitatively reported by participants, are related to one\u0026rsquo;s own emotions, which is consistent with the component (e.g., attention) and function (e.g., emotion regulation) of mindfulness meditation (Bishop et al., 2004).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotably, although kind attitudes and emotional well-being are not mutually exclusive, the prioritization and relationship between them are of philosophical importance. Confucian philosophy emphasizes the kindness rooted in human nature, and stresses pursuing righteousness which is related with kindness and justice rather than benefit (the so-called \u0026ldquo;righteousness-benefit debate\u0026rdquo;). Thus, it argues that kind attitudes like compassion are intrinsically valuable and come intuitively from human nature, while kind attitudes with consideration for other benefits are not admirable and may even be immoral (Feng, 1983). In Buddhism, the cultivation of kind attitudes (i.e., the four immeasurables) and the elimination of opposite attitudes (i.e., anger, hatred, envy, and attachment) are the primary purposes of LKCM, while emotional well-being and other pragmatic benefits are usually discussed only secondarily (Bodhi, 2012; Zeng et al., 2013). In particular, Mahayana Buddhism advocates that Buddhists should be devoted to relieving all-beings from suffering, even at their own expense (King, 1989). That is, in Buddhism, kind attitudes have inherent value and a higher priority than one\u0026rsquo;s own emotional well-being. In positive psychology, the hedonic tradition considers emotional well-being to be the most important value and the standard for well-being, while the eudaimonia tradition emphasizes the achievement of human potentials, values, and virtues, including kindness (Banicki, 2014). However, researchers have noted that the research and practice of positive psychology follows the hedonic tradition more, which is consistent with the prevalence of hedonic values in modern society (Joshanloo, 2014). Thus, one may be concerned as to whether potential LKCM trainees also demonstrate less interest in kind attitudes than in other benefits like emotional well-being.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn sum, the current study aimed to investigate people\u0026rsquo;s interest in different effects of LKCM trainings, especially the comparison between kind attitudes and emotional well-being. It also explored how such interest were associated with effects of LKCM training. Such study not only benefit the research and practice of LKCM training, but also shed light on the reasons behind the hedonic trend of modern positive psychology in broad sense.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Study 1 Interest in Different Effects of LKCM Training","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMethod\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAim of Study\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs an initial step, Study 1 intended to compare the interest in different effects of LKCM among a convenient sample of university students. In order to separate different effects and close to application in real setting, the study will measure participants\u0026rsquo; interest in participating in proposed meditations, each of which aimed to generate one specific effect. The kind attitudes were represented by compassion for others, compassion for oneself, and appreciative joy for others, which were emphasized in the real LKCM trainings. The emotional well-being included increasing positive emotion, decreasing negative emotion and improving peacefulness, which were validated effects of LKCM. Other validated effects were also measured as fillers and used as additional explorations. The core hypothesis was that the interest in meditations on kind attitudes is significantly lower than interest in meditations on emotional well-being.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParticipants\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA total of 583 Chinese university students participated in the study (199 females, mean age = 20.36 years, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e = 1.15). Of these, 557 (95.5%) declared no religious belief, while 26 (4.5%) reported a belief in religions; 114 (19.6%) reported previous meditation experience, while 469 (80.4%) had no meditation experience. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMaterials\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe current study created a measure called Willingness to Participate in Meditation Trainings (WPMT). Participants rated their willingness to participate in nine meditation trainings that serve different purposes. Each meditation was rated by one item (\u0026ldquo;if the purpose of meditation training is to xxx, how much are you willing to participate?\u0026rdquo; where \u0026ldquo;xxx\u0026rdquo; indicates the purposes listed below) and was measured with a 100-mm Visual Analogue Scale (0 = totally unwilling to participate, 100 = totally willing to participate). The purpose of meditation trainings are: (1) \u0026ldquo;to enhance positive emotions (happiness, joy, blissfulness)\u0026rdquo; (2) \u0026ldquo;to decrease negative emotions (stress, anxiety, depression)\u0026rdquo;; (3) \u0026ldquo;to improve peaceful feelings (tranquility, ease, serenity)\u0026rdquo;; (4) \u0026ldquo;to cultivate compassion for others (when they feel pain)\u0026rdquo;; (5) \u0026ldquo;to cultivate compassion for oneself (when you feel pain)\u0026rdquo;; (6) \u0026ldquo;to cultivate appreciative joy for others (when they succeed)\u0026rdquo;; (7) \u0026ldquo;to heighten study or work efficacy\u0026rdquo;; (8) \u0026ldquo;to improve interpersonal harmony and relationships\u0026rdquo;; (9) \u0026ldquo;to improve the state of spirituality or pursue a spiritual life.\u0026rdquo; According to their content, these nine meditation trainings were grouped into three domains in the analysis below: (1) to (3) are considered Meditations for Emotional Well-being; (4) to (6) are considered Meditations for Kind Attitudes; and (7) to (9) are considered Meditations for Other Benefits. Of note, to match with real LKCM trainings (e.g., Zeng et al., 2018) and to make participants consider their responses in a more realistic way, the information provided proposed that all trainings would be four weeks long, free of charge, and located in the participants\u0026rsquo; university. The WPMT measure generated by the authors is presented in full in the Supplemental Materials and its psychometric properties can be found in the Results section.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProcedure\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParticipants were recruited from two universities in Mainland China with the help of university staff. Those who voluntarily participated in the study answered the anonymous surveys in large classrooms. The informed consent was attached as the first page of the package, and each participant received a pen as a gift for their participation. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData analysis\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConfirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted with Mplus 7.4, and other analyses were conducted with SPSS 25.0. The EFA adopted principal components analysis and oblique rotation (PROMAX) since it was anticipated that these factors would be substantially correlated. The CFA used the maximum likelihood estimation, and the indexes included Root Mean Squared Error of Approximation (RMSEA, \u0026lt; .08 as acceptable fit), Comparative Fit Index (CFI, \u0026gt; .90 as acceptable fit), and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR, \u0026lt;.08 as acceptable fit; Hu and Bentler, 1999). Chi-squared was also used for potential model comparison. Nine out of 592 initial cases were excluded due to non-serious answers, and in the remaining cases, the mean was utilized to interpolate into individuals\u0026rsquo; missing responses. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResults\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs a preliminary analysis, nine items of the WPMT were analyzed with EFA and CFA, the details of which are provided in the Supplementary Materials. Briefly, 300 randomly selected cases were used in EFA. Consistent with the expectancy in the Method section, the EFA resulted in three factors: Emotional Well-Being included meditations (1) to (3); Kind Attitudes included meditations (4) to (6); and Other Benefits included meditations (7) to (9) (see Method for details of items). The three-factor structure was tested by CFA with the remaining 283 cases. After correlating three pairs of item errors, all indexes were acceptable, as \u003cem\u003e\u0026chi;\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/em\u003e/\u003cem\u003edf\u003c/em\u003e (21) = 3.29, RMSEA = .07, CFI = .982, and SRMR = .029. The item loadings of the nine items ranged from .73 to .87 (all \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003es＜.001) and the correlations between the three factors ranged from .68 to .87.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor all participants, Table 1 presents the average WPMT for the nine meditations and three factors, which indicate no extreme flooring or ceiling effects. The three factors of WPMT were compared using repeated measures ANOVA, controlling for gender, age, religious belief, and meditation experiences. The results indicate a significant main effect of gender (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1,556) =9.08, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .003, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003ep\u003c/sub\u003e\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e= .016), and a significant interaction between meditation groups (i.e., WPMT factors) and gender (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2,1112) =6.46, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .002, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003ep\u003c/sub\u003e\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e= .023); no other main effects or interactions were significant (all \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003es \u0026gt; 269). For the interaction between meditation groups and gender, subsequent simple effect analyses revealed a significant effect of factor both among males (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2,555) =315.01, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt;.001, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003ep\u003c/sub\u003e\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e= .532) and females (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2,555) =162.94, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt;.001, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003ep\u003c/sub\u003e\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e = .370). A post-hoc LSD test revealed that both males and females demonstrated lower scores in kind attitude than in the other two factors (all \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003es\u0026lt;.001). From another direction, males exhibited significantly higher willingness to participate in meditations on Emotional Well-being (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1,556) =18.47, \u003cem\u003ep\u0026lt;\u003c/em\u003e.001, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003ep\u003c/sub\u003e\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e = .032) and Other Benefits (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1,556) =4.10, \u003cem\u003ep = \u003c/em\u003e.043, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003ep\u003c/sub\u003e\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e = .007) than females, and a non-significant trend in Kind Attitudes (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1,556) =2.58, \u003cem\u003ep = \u003c/em\u003e.109). Additionally, a more illustrative finding is that only a few participants demonstrated higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Emotional Well-being (n = 34, 5.83%), or higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Other Benefits (n = 15, 2.57%). The Supplementary Materials present the further comparisons between meditations under each group of three meditations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiscussion\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStudy 1 listed nine proposed meditation training, and the CFA supported they could be successfully grouped into three types of benefit. Consistent with the core hypothesis, the WPMT on Kind Attitudes was significantly lower than WPMT on Emotional Well-being, as well as Other Benefits. In fact, only a few participants preferred Kind Attitudes to other benefits. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnexpectedly, the current study found that females exhibited lower WPMT than males, although the trend for Kind Attitudes did not reach statistical significance. A previous study also reported that females had a higher dropout rate from LKCM training than males, but that training was conducted in a military setting for weight control (Mantzios \u0026amp; Wilson, 2015), and thus differed from the current study in many ways. That is, many factors may influence the observed gender difference, and too few comparable previous studies have been conducted. As an initial investigation, the current study could not confirm whether the gender difference reflected certain stereotypes regarding meditations or meditators, or whether the reduced difference between genders implied that males felt that being compassionate mismatches with masculinity (Constantinople, 1973). These interesting possibilities are left for future studies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was no difference in WPMT between people with and without previous meditation experience. This finding is similar to a previous study by Pepping et al. (2016), which demonstrated a large overlap in the reasons for commencing and continuing with mindfulness meditation. Study 1 did not collect the details of participants\u0026rsquo; meditation experience, because it did not expect that university sample had much experience with LKCM or other meditations. Therefore, it was not possible to extract the impact of LKCM among all kinds of meditation practice in Study 1.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Study 2 Interest in Different Effects and Their Relation with Results of Training","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMethod\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAim of Study\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStudy 1 recruited university students, who did not necessarily participate a meditation training even they showed interest when respond to WPMT measure. Therefore, Study 2 adopted WPMT in a 21-day online LKCM training. This make sure all participants really took part in meditation training, and allowed further exploration on how participants\u0026rsquo; WPMT were associated with the adherence and effects of training. To be more sensitive for the change during short training, the effects of training used state-like measures and still focused on two aspects: (1) personal happiness (happiness, sadness, peacefulness) which matched emotional well-being, and (2) interpersonal relationship (love, hate, gratitude) which reflected kind attitudes. The core hypotheses were that higher interest in meditations on Emotional Well-being and Kind attitudes predicted increases in personal happiness and interpersonal relationship, respectively.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParticipants\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA total of 1075 participants registered the training and finished the pre-training measures (785 males, mean age = 30.28, years, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e = 9.88). In total, 980(91.2%) declared no religious belief, while 95 (8.8%) reported a belief in religions, and 159(14.8%) reported that they had mediation experience. Among them, 243 participants finished the training and post-training measures (175 males, mean age = 30.09, years, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e = 10.76), 224(92.2%) declared no religious belief, while 19(7.8%) reported a belief in religions, and 38(15.6%) reported that they had mediation experience. The dropout rate (71.9%) was similar to a previous study using a 20-day online loving-kindness meditation intervention (Galante et al., 2014).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e Measures\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe measure of WPMT was basically the same with that in Study 1, and it directly asked the interests in the current 21-day meditation training.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe measure for effects of training used word lists, which measured the frequency of 10 types of experience in the past week, with three items for each type. Specifically, three types focused on personal happiness: Happiness (delighted, happy, satisfied), Sadness (blue, gloomy, sad; score reversed), Peacefulness (calm, peaceful, serene). Another three types focused on interpersonal relationship: Love (love, care, friendly); Hate (envy, hate, hostile; score reversed); Gratitude (appreciated, grateful, thankful). The remaining four types were used as fillers: Hope (encouraged, hopeful, optimistic); Stress (nervous, overwhelmed, stressed; score reversed); Fear (afraid, fearful, scared; score reserved); Excitement (elation, enthusiasm, excitement), which means the higher the score in fillers, the better the effect. All words were presented in pseudo-random way and measured from 1 (never) to 5 (always) points. Such measures had been validated and all words were adopted from previous studies (Fredrickson et al., 2003; Zeng et al., 2017). Coefficients of \u0026alpha; each component were: 0.572 (personal happiness), 0.579 (interpersonal relationship), 0.575 (fillers).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProcedure\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe online LKCM training was delivered as a free intervention for the public to help people cope with COVID-19. It was described as a \u0026lsquo;21-day course of positive psychological meditation\u0026rsquo; without emphasis on emotional well-being or kind attitudes. The criteria of inclusion required participants to be Chinese-speaking adults without previous or current mental disorder, which was confirmed by self-report in the consent form. For ethical considerations, all participants got access to the training immediately after finishing the consent form and the pre-training measures, and no waitlist or placebo was used. The post-training measures was conducted immediately after the meditation practice on the last day. As described in the consent form, participants who did not continue to practice meditation for 5 consecutive days were considered as quit, and 10% of completers received 400 RMB as a reward after a random draw. All data used in the current article was reported for the first time, and other data will be reported elsewhere as they serve other purposes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe training was presented on the web application, and the participants followed the recorded instructions to practice meditation for 12 to 15 minutes every day. Once participants finished the component for the current day, new components were available the next day. The first day uses breathing meditation to learn the basic meditation principles, and the remaining 20 days practice LKCM, which were equally divided into 4 sections of 5 days: The first two sections involved loving-kindness meditation for oneself and close ones. The third section turned to appreciative joy meditation for oneself and close ones, and the fourth section further added appreciative joy meditation for neutral others.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResults\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConsistent with Study 1, the nine items of WPMT resulted in three factors, and the details of CFA were presented in Supplemental Materials. The three factors of WPMT were compared using repeated measures ANOVA, controlling for gender, age, religious belief, and meditation experiences. The results revealed that participants demonstrated lower scores in Kind Attitudes (\u003cem\u003eM \u003c/em\u003e=76.32, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e =22.46) than Emotional Well-being (\u003cem\u003eM \u003c/em\u003e=86.98, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e = 15.12) and Other Benefits (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e =86.42, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e =16.69), and still only a few participants demonstrated higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Emotional Well-being (n = 122, 11.34%), or higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Other Benefits (n = 117, 10.88%), which were similar to study 1. The results were different from study 1 was that the comparison between three factors demonstrated a marginal significant interaction between WPMT factors and gender (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e =2.710, \u003cem\u003ep =\u003c/em\u003e.073, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003ep\u003c/sub\u003e\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e = .003). Further exploration showed that participants in study 2 had higher interest than those in study 1 on all three factors (all \u003cem\u003eps\u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt;0.05). Additionally, comparison between participants who completed the training and those who did not complete the training found no significant difference on all three factors in study 2 (all \u003cem\u003eps\u003c/em\u003e\u0026gt;0.05). \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs presented in Table 2, pre-post comparisons showed the training significantly improved personal happiness, interpersonal relationship and fillers. As for the correlations between effects and WPMT, the results find no significant correlations between any effects and WPMT with original data (see Table 3). Considering the WPMT might suffer from extreme values and non-normal distribution, further exploration standardizing WPMT, personal happiness, interpersonal relationship and fillers. As shown in Table 3, the results showed a significant but low positive correlation between WPMT on emotional well-being and training effects on personal happiness (\u003cem\u003er \u003c/em\u003e= 0.152, \u003cem\u003ep \u003c/em\u003e= 0.009) and fillers (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = 0.161,\u003cem\u003e p\u003c/em\u003e = 0.006), but no significant correlations between interpersonal relationship and WPMT. Therefore, the hypothesis was partly substantiated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiscussion\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the sample who participated real LKCM training, Study 2 confirmed the finding of Study 1, that cultivating kind attitudes are lesser attractive than improving emotional well-being. Of note, although the recruitment did not emphasize emotional well-being or kind attitudes, participants nevertheless had their expectation about the training. For example, people without much knowledge on meditation might consider the major function of meditation is calming the mind, or the major concern of people during stressful COVID-19 background is to seek for improving emotion. These factors might lead to selection bias, that people who seek for emotional well-being involved in this study. However, if such a selection bias existed, this just supported our basic argument, that people have certain preference in effects of meditation and it will impact their participation. More importantly, the consistent findings in Study 1 implied that the lesser preference to kind attitudes also existed among other sample, and thus the finding of lesser preference on kind attitudes should not be simply attributed to the special background in study 2. Additionally, study 2 ensured that all participants really want to participate. Comparing study 1 with study 2, participants in study 2 scored higher than those in participants in study 1 on all three factors. In other words, participants who really wanted to participate in the intervention did have a higher interest in these three factors of WPMT, which also provided some validation for the measures. Additionally, the study 2 did not replicate the gender differences in study 1. It seems that the gender difference was not robust and future study could explore it with clear hypothesis. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore importantly, the results indicated that WPMT on Emotional Well-being exhibited a significant positive correlation with effects on personal happiness and fillers, which provided supportive evidence for the core hypothesis that WPMT could predict effects of training. Additionally, the non-significant results based on original data suggested that the measures of WPMT was not very sensitive, which requires further optimization in the future. It is also notable that current study did not manipulate WPMT, and thus the finding is essentially correlational rather than causal. Nevertheless, current finding provided important evidence that the pre-existed individual difference on WPMT could predict effect of training. This supported that WPMT is not only a preference for potential or assumed meditation trainings, but has its relevance to what happens in real meditation trainings. \u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"General Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe current study provided an initial investigation of people\u0026rsquo;s interest in typical effects of LKCM trainings. Two studies cohesively supported that Kind Attitudes were lesser preferable that Emotional well-being and also other known effects of LKCM, which were quite stable across university students and people who really participated LKCM training. More importantly, the interest in different effects could also predict the effects of training. From perspective of scientific research, previous studies had reported trainees\u0026rsquo; interest and other psychological variables could predicted the adherence and meditation practice during LKCM training (Mascaro et al., 2013; Mascaro et al., 2018), and current study further detected pre-existed interest in meditation also impacted the effects. All of these evidences highlighted that the findings in studies on LKCM training might be biased due to self-selection. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that researchers measure the pre-training interest, motivation, and expectancy of participants and clearly report how trainings are delivered to practitioners (e.g., delivered as positive psychology trainings to improve well-being; Zeng et al., 2018), which are useful for evaluating the expectancy effects and generalizability of results. From perspective of practice, scholars have highlighted the importance to match the components of interventions with the needs of trainees, especially considering LKCM and other mindfulness-based interventions have multiple components that serve for different purposes (Zeng et al., 2018). The new measurements developed in the current study help researchers and practitioners to better understand the interest of potential trainees.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFurthermore, the finding that kind attitudes are lesser attractive than emotional well-being and other benefits highlighted the hedonic trend in practice. As introduced at the beginning, the cultivation of kind attitudes is the primary purpose of LKCM trainings in Buddhism (Zeng et al., 2013), and the doctrine of Buddhism also attaches more importance to kindness toward all-beings than to one\u0026rsquo;s own happiness (King, 1989). That is, the preference among potential practitioners differs from the core value system in traditional LKCM trainings. This may be explained with the observation that modern society follows hedonic values more. That is, happiness (i.e., emotional well-being) and those things that are considered to effectively generate happiness (i.e., other benefits) are more valuable, while kind attitudes seem less valuable (Joshanloo, 2014). Alternatively, one may claim that most people today are more self-centered, and thus have more interest in self-beneficial purposes like enjoyment of happiness or enhancing ability, in comparison with kindness that benefits others. However, the kind attitudes measured in WPMT also included self-compassion, a kind attitude toward self. Thus, the self-centeredness seems not the best explanation for the finding. More importantly, be it hedonic value or self-centeredness, both explanations involve the conflict between practitioners\u0026rsquo; considerations and Buddhist values. Scholars had pointed out that the positive psychology had hedonic trend (Joshanloo, 2014), and the current study showed this may partially be facilitated by the \u0026ldquo;market\u0026rdquo; or culture background, as the trainees or public also showed more interest in improving emotional well-being than cultivating kind attitudes.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile current empirical data focused on participant\u0026rsquo;s value, the current study also inspire the researchers and practitioners to consider the purpose of their LKCM trainings and the role of kind attitudes. That is, whether cultivation of kind attitudes is the intrinsic purpose or serves as the tool for other benefits. Although kind attitudes and other benefits do not conflict with each other, a clear answer to the role of kind attitudes is important for practice in some cases. For example, LKCM has been considered a promising practice for the cultivation of or education in morality (e.g., Bankard, 2015; Zeng, 2016). Some scholars have also mentioned the idea of \u0026ldquo;kindness for happiness\u0026rdquo;; this means attracting people who are not interested in kind attitudes with other benefits like increasing positive emotions, or in general, to advocate other-focused kindness for the sake of self-focused benefits (Zeng, 2016). The current study supports that emotional well-being is indeed more attractive than kind attitudes. However, whether this \u0026ldquo;kindness for happiness\u0026rdquo; idea distorts the virtues as claimed by Confucianism requires further discussion. Furthermore, Zeng et al. (2018) argued that mindfulness-based interventions, especially those integrating LKCM, should clarify the implicit value judgments delivered in the interventions, in order to respect the cultural background and choice of trainees. Therefore, it is important for researchers and practitioners to clarify the purpose of LKCM and the role of kind attitudes in their interventions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLimitations and Future Direction\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the current study has provided an initial investigation into interest in different effects of LKCM trainings, several limitations are worth noting. Firstly, the exploratory nature of the current study and the length of the questionnaire limit the validity and comprehensiveness of the measures. Although the measures generated in the current study demonstrate good psychometric properties and resulted in reasonable findings, their validity requires further confirmation. Therefore, future studies could consider using more comprehensive measures for better investigations. Secondly, Study 2 only measured WPMT in pre-training measures. Previous studies reported that LKCM training changed participants\u0026rsquo; value (value higher for low-arousal positive emotion; Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013), and future studies could investigate whether LKCM trainings can change one\u0026rsquo;s interest in different effects. Thirdly, the sample in the current study are all Chinese, and the generalizability of the findings should be treated with caution. A study reported spiritual practice is associated with better mental health among American and Indian samples but worse mental health among a Chinese sample (McClintock et al., 2016), which suggested that cultural difference is important when discussing interest in meditation trainings. However, positive psychologists pointed out that Western culture valued more on emotional well-being than Eastern culture (Joshanloo, 2014), and thus we believed the findings that kind attitudes are lesser attractive should also stand still in Western culture, although it nevertheless worthies for empirical exploring. Despite these limitations, the current study has noted the important phenomenon whereby kind attitudes are the core of LKCM, but are less appealing for potential trainees. It not only provided an initial exploration of the interests of potential trainees, but also called for more attention to the purposes and ethical issues of LKCM trainings.\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics approval and consent to participate:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThis study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by IRB in Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInformed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent for publication\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e：\u003c/strong\u003eNot applicable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAvailability of data and materials:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThe datasets are available from https://osf.io/txzwa/?view_only=8deb8d8d774e497e86c0e05718e68e83.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interest:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThe authors have no competing interests to disclose.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e：\u003c/strong\u003eThis work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32200896), the Beijing Municipal Education Commission (KM202210028001).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthors\u0026rsquo; Contribution:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eYD and XZ designed the study and collected data, YD and WW analyzed the data. All authors discussed the findings and wrote the article.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAcknowledgements:\u003c/strong\u003e Not applicable.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBanicki, K. (2014). Positive psychology on character strengths and virtues. A disquieting suggestion. \u003cem\u003eNew Ideas in Psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e33\u003c/em\u003e(1), 21-34.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBankard, J. (2015). Training emotion cultivates morality: How loving-kindness meditation hones compassion and increases prosocial behavior. \u003cem\u003eJournal of religion and health\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e54\u003c/em\u003e(6), 2324-2343.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., et al. (2004). Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. \u003cem\u003eClinical Psychology: Science and Practice\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e11\u003c/em\u003e, 230\u0026ndash;241.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBodhi, B. (Ed.). (2012). \u003cem\u003eA Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Ācariya Anuruddha\u003c/em\u003e. Pariyatti. http://store.pariyatti.org/Comprehensive-Manual-of-Abhidhamma-A--PDF-eBook_p_4362.html\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCondon, P., Desbordes, G., Miller, W. B., \u0026amp; DeSteno, D. (2013). Meditation increases compassionate responses to suffering.\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Psychological science\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e24\u003c/em\u003e(10), 2125-2127.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCondon, P., \u0026amp; Barrett, L. F. (2013). Conceptualizing and experiencing compassion.\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Emotion\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e13\u003c/em\u003e(5), 817-821.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eConstantinople, A. (1973). Masculinity-femininity: An exception to a famous dictum?. \u003cem\u003ePsychological Bulletin\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e80\u003c/em\u003e(5), 389-407.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFeng, Y. (1983). \u003cem\u003eA history of Chinese philosophy (Vol. 1)\u003c/em\u003e. Princeton University Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;American Psychologist, 56\u003c/em\u003e(3), 218-226.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M., Waugh, C. E., \u0026amp; Larkin, G. R. (2003). What good are positive emotions in crisis? A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84\u003c/em\u003e(2), 365\u0026ndash;376. https:// doi. org/ 10.1037/ 0022- 3514.84.2.365\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., \u0026amp; Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Personality and Social Psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e95\u003c/em\u003e(5), 1045-1062.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eGalante, J., Galante, I., Bekkers, M. J., \u0026amp; Gallacher, J. (2014). Effect of kindness-based meditation on health and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e82\u003c/em\u003e(6), 1101-1114.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eGraser, J., \u0026amp; Stangier, U. (2018). Compassion and Loving-Kindness Meditation: An Overview and Prospects for the Application in Clinical Samples. \u003cem\u003eHarvard review of psychiatry, 26\u003c/em\u003e(4), 201-215.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eHu, L., \u0026amp; Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional critia versus new alternatives. \u003cem\u003eStructural Equation Modeling\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e6\u003c/em\u003e, 1-55.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eHunsinger, M., Livingston, R., \u0026amp; Isbell, L. (2013). The impact of loving-kindness meditation on affective learning and cognitive control. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness, 4\u003c/em\u003e(3), 275-280.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eJazaieri, H., Jinpa, G. T., McGonigal, K., Rosenberg, E. L., Finkelstein, J., Simon-Thomas, E., ... \u0026amp; Goldin, P. R. (2013). Enhancing compassion: A randomized controlled trial of a compassion cultivation training program. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Happiness Studies, 14\u003c/em\u003e(4), 1113-1126.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eJoshanloo, M. (2014). Eastern conceptualization of happiness: Fundamental differences with Western views. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Happiness Study, 15\u003c/em\u003e, 475-493.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKang, Y., Gray, J. R., \u0026amp; Dovidio, J. F. (2015). The head and the heart: Effects of understanding and experiencing lovingkindness on attitudes toward the self and others. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e6\u003c/em\u003e(5), 1063-1070.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKearney, D. J., McManus, C., Malte, C. A., Martinez, M. E., Felleman, B., \u0026amp; Simpson, T. L. (2014). Loving-kindness meditation and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. \u003cem\u003eMedical care, 52\u003c/em\u003e, S32-S38.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKing, W. L. (1989). Buddhist Self-World Theory and Buddhist Ethics. \u003cem\u003eThe Eastern Buddhist, 22\u003c/em\u003e(2), 14-26.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKok, B. E., Coffey, K. A., Cohn, M. A., Catalino, L. I., Vacharkulksemsuk, T., Algoe, S. B., ... \u0026amp; Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone. \u003cem\u003ePsychological Science\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e24\u003c/em\u003e(7), 1123-1132.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKoopmann-Holm, B., Sze, J., Ochs, C., \u0026amp; Tsai, J. L. (2013). Buddhist-inspired meditation increases the value of calm. \u003cem\u003eEmotion\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e13\u003c/em\u003e(3), 497-505.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKraus, S., \u0026amp; Sears, S. (2009). Measuring the immeasurables: Development and initial validation of the Self-Other Four Immeasurables (SOFI) scale based on Buddhist teachings on loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. \u003cem\u003eSocial Indicators Research\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e92\u003c/em\u003e(1), 169-181.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eLeiberg, S., Klimecki, O., \u0026amp; Singer, T. (2011). Short-term compassion training increases prosocial behavior in a newly developed prosocial game. \u003cem\u003ePloS one\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;6\u003c/em\u003e(3), e17798.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eLumma, A. L., Kok, B. E., \u0026amp; Singer, T. (2015). Is meditation always relaxing? Investigating heart rate, heart rate variability, experienced effort and likeability during training of three types of meditation. \u003cem\u003eInternational Journal of Psychophysiology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e97\u003c/em\u003e(1), 38-45.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eMascaro, J. S., Kelley, S., Darcher, A., Negi, L. T., Worthman, C., Miller, A., \u0026amp; Raison, C. (2018). Meditation buffers medical student compassion from the deleterious effects of depression. \u003cem\u003eThe Journal of Positive Psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e13\u003c/em\u003e(2), 133-142.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eMascaro, J. S., Rilling, J. K., Negi, L. T., \u0026amp; Raison, C. L. (2013). Pre-existing brain function predicts subsequent practice of mindfulness and compassion meditation. \u003cem\u003eNeuroimage\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;69\u003c/em\u003e, 35-42.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eMantzios, M., \u0026amp; Wilson, J. C. (2015). Exploring mindfulness and mindfulness with self-compassion-centered interventions to assist weight loss: theoretical considerations and preliminary results of a randomized pilot study. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;6\u003c/em\u003e(4), 824-835.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eMcClintock, C. H., Lau, E., \u0026amp; Miller, L. (2016). Phenotypic dimensions of spirituality: implications for mental health in China, India, and the United States.\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Frontiers in Psychology\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;7\u003c/em\u003e, 1600.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eNeff, K. D., \u0026amp; Germer, C. K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self‐compassion program. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Clinical Psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e69\u003c/em\u003e(1), 28-44.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003ePepping, C. A., Walters, B., Davis, P. J., \u0026amp; O\u0026rsquo;Donovan, A. (2016). Why do people practice mindfulness? An investigation into reasons for practicing mindfulness meditation. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;7\u003c/em\u003e(2), 542-547.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eReddy, S. D., Negi, L. T., Dodson-Lavelle, B., Ozawa-de Silva, B., Pace, T. W., Cole, S. P., ... \u0026amp; Craighead, L. W. (2013). Cognitive-Based Compassion Training: a promising prevention strategy for at-risk adolescents. J\u003cem\u003eournal of Child and Family Studies\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e22\u003c/em\u003e(2), 219-230.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eShonin, E., Van Gordon, W., Compare, A., Zangeneh, M., \u0026amp; Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Buddhist-derived loving-kindness and compassion meditation for the treatment of psychopathology: a systematic review. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e6\u003c/em\u003e(5), 1161-1180.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eVan Gordon, W., Shonin, E., \u0026amp; Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Towards a second generation of mindfulness-based interventions. \u003cem\u003eAustralian \u0026amp; New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e49\u003c/em\u003e(7), 591-592.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWeytens, F., Luminet, O., Verhofstadt, L. L., \u0026amp; Mikolajczak, M. (2014). An integrative theory-driven positive emotion regulation intervention. \u003cem\u003ePLoS One\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e9\u003c/em\u003e(4), e95677.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X. (2016). Loving-kindness Meditation: A Buddhist Way to Cultivate Confucian Benevolence? Presented at the 31st International Congress of Psychology (ICP2016), 28th July, 2016, Yokohama, Japan.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X., Chan, V. Y., Liu, X., Oei, T. P., \u0026amp; Leung, F. Y. (2017a). The four immeasurables meditations: differential effects of appreciative joy and compassion meditations on emotions. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e8\u003c/em\u003e(4), 949-959.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X., Chan, V. Y., Oei, T. P., Leung, F. Y., \u0026amp; Liu, X. (2017c). Appreciative Joy in Buddhism and Positive Empathy in Psychology: How Do They Differ? \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e, https:// doi. org/10.1007/s12671-017-0690-5.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X., Chiu, C., Wang, R., Oei, T., \u0026amp; Leung, F. (2015). The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review. \u003cem\u003eFrontier in Psychology\u003c/em\u003e, https:// doi. org/ 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01693\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X. \u0026amp; Deng, Y. (2018). Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Fears of Compassion Scales. Manuscript in Preparation.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X., Li, M., Zhang, B., \u0026amp; Liu, X. (2015). Revision of the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale for measuring awareness and equanimity in Goenka\u0026rsquo;s Vipassana Meditation with Chinese Buddhists. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Religion and Health\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e54\u003c/em\u003e(2), 623-637.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X., Liao, R., Zhang, R., Oei, T. P., Yao, Z., Leung, F. Y., \u0026amp; Liu, X. (2017b). Development of the Appreciative Joy Scale. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e8\u003c/em\u003e(2), 286-299.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X., Liu, S., \u0026amp; Liu, X. (2013). The application and empirical studies on loving-kindness meditation from psychological perspective. \u003cem\u003eAdvances in Psychological Science, 21\u003c/em\u003e(8), 1466-1472.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eZeng, X., Wang, R., Oei, T. P., \u0026amp; Leung, F. Y. (2018). Heart of joy: A randomized controlled trail evaluating the effect of an Appreciative Joy Meditation training on subjective well-being and attitudes. \u003cem\u003eMindfulness\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e10\u003c/em\u003e(3), 506-515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0992-2\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Tables","content":"\u003cp\u003eTable 1. Means and standard deviations of willingness to participate different meditations in study 1 and study 2 .\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"54.0625%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWillingness to participate in meditation training\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eStudy 1(M\u003c/em\u003e \u0026plusmn; \u003cem\u003eSD)\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eStudy 2(M \u0026plusmn; SD)\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"54.0625%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eKind attitudes\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e52.39\u0026plusmn;24.85\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e76.32\u0026plusmn;22.46\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCompassion for others\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e54.37\u0026plusmn;27.55\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e73.14\u0026plusmn;27.07\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCompassion for self\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e45.16\u0026plusmn;30.51\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e80.28\u0026plusmn;23.93\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAppreciative joy for others\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e57.62\u0026plusmn;27.11\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e75.54\u0026plusmn;24.90\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"54.0625%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEmotional well-being\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e76.74\u0026plusmn;21.06\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e86.98\u0026plusmn;15.12\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePositive emotions\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e76.97\u0026plusmn;23.89\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e86.36\u0026plusmn;17.80\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eNegative emotions\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e77.83\u0026plusmn;23.62\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e87.02\u0026plusmn;18.99\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeaceful feelings\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e75.42\u0026plusmn;24.59\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e87.56\u0026plusmn;18.32\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"54.0625%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eOther Benefits\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e80.55\u0026plusmn;19.47\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e86.42\u0026plusmn;16.69\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eStudy efficacy\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e82.25\u0026plusmn;20.94\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e89.37\u0026plusmn;16.72\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInterpersonal harmony\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e80.75\u0026plusmn;21.4\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e84.53\u0026plusmn;20.87\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"22.34375%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"31.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSpiritual status\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"24.21875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e78.64\u0026plusmn;23.54\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"21.71875%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e85.34\u0026plusmn;20.52\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 2.\u0026nbsp;Results of pre-test and post-test data and paired-sample t-tests\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"650\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"28.307692307692307%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePre (M \u0026plusmn; SD)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePost(M\u0026plusmn;SD)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ed\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"28.307692307692307%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePersonal happiness\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e29.34\u0026plusmn;5.62\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e33.67\u0026plusmn;5.40\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-3.94\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-4.33\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHappiness\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.88\u0026plusmn;0.63\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.18\u0026plusmn;0.73\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-6.48\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.30\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSadness\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.41\u0026plusmn;0.71\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.86\u0026plusmn;0.66\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e11..02\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.55\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeacefulness\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.17\u0026plusmn;0.83\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.65\u0026plusmn;0.82\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-9.21\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.42\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"28.307692307692307%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInterpersonal relationship\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e31.85\u0026plusmn;5.38\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e34.62\u0026plusmn;5.48\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-1.96\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-2.77\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLove\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.35\u0026plusmn;0.75\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.60\u0026plusmn;0.80\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-5.16\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.25\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHate\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.79\u0026plusmn;0.69\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.43\u0026plusmn;0.57\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e8.74\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.37\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGratitude\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.06\u0026plusmn;0.85\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.37\u0026plusmn;0.90\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-5.60\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.31\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"28.307692307692307%\" colspan=\"2\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eFillers\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e39.77\u0026plusmn;6.94\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e44.99\u0026plusmn;6.52\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.11\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-5.23\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHope\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.03\u0026plusmn;0.80\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.43\u0026plusmn;0.86\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-8.31\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.40\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eStress\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.66\u0026plusmn;0.79\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.04\u0026plusmn;0.70\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e12.47\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.62\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eExcitement\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.02\u0026plusmn;0.71\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.44\u0026plusmn;0.78\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-8.84\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.42\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"8.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eFear\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.384615384615383%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.99\u0026plusmn;0.79\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.57\u0026plusmn;0.63\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.076923076923077%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e8.62\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"13.23076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.923076923076923%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.42\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 3.\u0026nbsp;The correlation(sig) between\u0026nbsp;Emotional well-being and personal happiness, and the correlation between Kind Attitudes and interpersonal relationship\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"649\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.015408320493066%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.722650231124806%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eZscore(ChangeEMOPH)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eZscore(ChangeEMOIR)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eZscore(ChangeEMOFL)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eChange PH\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"16.640986132511557%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eChange IR\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.015408320493066%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eZscore(EW)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.722650231124806%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.152**(0.009)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.106(0.050)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.161**(0.006)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"16.640986132511557%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.015408320493066%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eZscore(KA)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.722650231124806%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.066(0.153)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.089(0.084)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.053(0.207)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"16.640986132511557%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"10.015408320493066%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEW - KA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"19.722650231124806%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"17.873651771956858%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-0.035(0.585)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd width=\"16.640986132511557%\" valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0.024(0.726)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e EW represents Emotional Well-being, KA represents Kind Attitudes, PH represents personal happiness, IR represents interpersonal relationship, FL represents fillers, Zscore means standardization, Change means Changes in before and after testing\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"bmc-psychology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"psyo","sideBox":"Learn more about [BMC Psychology](http://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"BMC Psychology","twitterHandle":"BMC_series","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"BMC Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Loving-kindness Meditation, Compassion Meditation, Positive Psychology, Philosophy, Buddhism, Hedonism","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4459312/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4459312/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThe primary purpose of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations (LKCM) in Buddhism was the cultivation of kindness, but many modern LKCM trainings focused on happiness, and even used the \u0026ldquo;kindness for happiness\u0026rdquo; strategy that advocate cultivation of kindness for the benefit of happiness. This study investigated whether cultivating kindness was lesser desired than enhancing happiness for potential trainees, and it impacts on LKCM training. Study 1 recruited 583 university students, study 2 involved 1075 participants from a 4-week online LKCM training. The measures included interest in meditation trainings that focused on emotional happiness, kind attitudes and other effects. Two studies cohesively supported kind attitudes were the least desired effects, and study 2 showed that higher interest in meditations on Emotional Well-being predicted increases in personal happiness. In summary, this study provided first evidence that trainees\u0026rsquo; preference on potential effects of LKCM existed and linked with effects of training. It suggested the hedonic bias in modern positive psychology is facilitated by trainees, and encouraged further attention in the philosophical and ethical issues in the trainings. The intervention program has been retrospectively registered with the PRS on May 17, 2024, under registration number NCT06424951.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Kindness is lesser preferable than happiness: Investigating interest in different effects of the Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-06-05 12:10:47","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4459312/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2024-05-24T13:17:51+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2024-05-23T14:04:35+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2024-05-23T14:04:35+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"BMC Psychology","date":"2024-05-22T08:20:45+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"bmc-psychology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"psyo","sideBox":"Learn more about [BMC Psychology](http://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"BMC Psychology","twitterHandle":"BMC_series","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"BMC Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"fb9b952d-cfe0-478d-9e12-9d818a986930","owner":[],"postedDate":"June 5th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-04-28T16:10:56+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-4459312","link":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02771-4","journal":{"identity":"bmc-psychology","isVorOnly":false,"title":"BMC Psychology"},"publishedOn":"2025-04-26 15:58:16","publishedOnDateReadable":"April 26th, 2025"},"versionCreatedAt":"2024-06-05 12:10:47","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1186/s40359-025-02771-4","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02771-4","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-4459312","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4459312","identity":"rs-4459312","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}