Kindness is lesser preferable than happiness: investigating interest in different effects of the loving-kindness and compassion meditations

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 Subjective 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.

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 [13]. 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; [25, 45]. 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 [43].

Empirical research on the effects of LKCM has risen sharply in recent years [12, 20, 26, 28]. 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., [15, 48]). 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 [26] to simulated daily-life situations [5, 6]. Beyond the basic function of cultivating kind attitudes, studies have further reported that LKCM also benefits practitioners’ subjective well-being. Some meta-analyses reported that LKCM training could generate positive emotions [15, 26, 28]. Specifically, some studies emphasized that LKCMs generate more low-arousal positive emotions (e.g., calmness; [21]), while other studies also reported an increase in medium-arousal positive emotions (e.g., happiness; [49]). Many studies have also reported that LKCMs can reduce negative emotions, although these effects are less consistent than those for positive emotions (e.g., [11, 23]). 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 [14, 35, 36]). 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., [10, 11, 17, 38]). To summarize the extant research, the most researched outcomes are kind attitudes and subjective 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 [33]. 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 [18]. 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 [49]. Zeng et al. [44, 49] 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 subjective 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., [30, 39]); 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. [24, 27]). Considering that the purpose of some LKCM trainings is explicitly delivered during recruitment (e.g., [49]), 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 [41], and can also reduce the high dropout rate (e.g., [29, 39]). 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 [27]. 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 [29]. 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; [34]). 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 [3].

Notably, although kind attitudes and subjective 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 [8]. 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 subjective well-being and other pragmatic benefits are usually discussed only secondarily [4, 47]. In particular, Mahayana Buddhism advocates that Buddhists should be devoted to relieving all-beings from suffering, even at their own expense [22]. That is, in Buddhism, kind attitudes have inherent value and a higher priority than one’s own subjective well-being. However, it should be noted that the practice of LKCMs, rooted in Buddhist philosophy, encompasses a comprehensive approach to well-being that goes beyond mere interest or pleasure. The Buddhist perspective on emotions includes an understanding of neutral emotions that contribute to a state of balance and tranquility, rather than being confined to positive or negative emotions alone. This understanding is crucial in the context of LKCMs because it indicates that the practice is not just about enhancing positive emotions or reducing negative ones, but also about maintaining a balanced emotional state. Bodhi [4] In positive psychology, the hedonic tradition considers subjective 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 [1]. 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 [19]. Thus, one may be concerned as to whether potential LKCM trainees also demonstrate less interest in kind attitudes than in other benefits like subjective 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 subjective 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 subjective 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 subjective 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 Subjective 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., [49]) 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 assistance of university staff. Volunteers who chose to participate in the study were assembled in large classrooms and were first given a brief introduction to the research by the principal investigator. Following this, they read and signed the informed consent form, which was attached as the first page of the survey package. After providing their consent, participants proceeded to complete the anonymous surveys. Upon finishing the survey, each participant's responses were collected by the principal investigator, and they were each given a pen as a token of appreciation for their participation in the study.

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, < 0.08 as acceptable fit), Comparative Fit Index (CFI, > 0.90 as acceptable fit), and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR, < 0.08 as acceptable fit; [16]). 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: Subjective 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 χ²/df (21) = 3.29, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.982, and SRMR = 0.029. The item loadings of the nine items ranged from 0.73 to 0.87 (all ps < 0.001) and the correlations between the three factors ranged from 0.68 to 0.87.

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 = 0.003, η_p² = 0.016), and a significant interaction between meditation conditions (i.e., WPMT factors) and gender (F(2,1112) = 6.46, p = 0.002, η_p² = 0.023); no other main effects or interactions were significant (all ps > 269). For the interaction between meditation conditions and gender, subsequent simple effect analyses revealed a significant effect of factor both among males (F(2,555) = 315.01, p < 0.001, η_p² = 0.532) and females (F(2,555) = 162.94, p < 0.001, η_p² = 0.370). A post-hoc LSD test revealed that both males and females demonstrated lower scores in kind attitude than in the other two factors (all ps < 0.001). From another direction, males exhibited significantly higher willingness to participate in meditations on Subjective well-being (F(1,556) = 18.47, p < 0.001, η_p² = 0.032) and Other Benefits (F(1,556) = 4.10, p = 0.043, η_p² = 0.007) than females, and a non-significant trend in Kind Attitudes (F(1,556) = 2.58, p = 0.109). Additionally, a more illustrative finding is that only a few participants demonstrated higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Subjective well-being (n = 34, 5.83%), or higher interest in Kind Attitudes than Other Benefits (n = 15, 2.57%).

Table 1 Means and standard deviations of willingness to participate different meditations in study 1 and study 2

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 Subjective 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 [28, 31], 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 [7]. 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. [34], 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 subjective well-being, and (2) interpersonal relationship (love, hate, gratitude) which reflected kind attitudes. The core hypotheses were that higher interest in meditations on Subjective 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 [12]. Using G*Power for post-hoc power analysis, the current sample size is significantly higher than what is required for an effect size of 0.8, a significance level of 0.05, and a statistical power of 95%.

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 [9, 10, 37, 42, 46]. Coefficients of α each component were: 0.572 (personal happiness), 0.579 (interpersonal relationship), 0.575 (fillers).

Procedure

Participants were initially presented with an informed consent form that detailed the nature of the"21-day course of positive psychological meditation,"emphasizing it was an intervention to help cope with COVID- 19 without focusing on subjective well-being or kind attitudes. The form clarified the inclusion criteria, which required participants to be Chinese-speaking adults without previous or current mental disorders, as self-reported. Ethical considerations were met by providing immediate access to the training upon completion of the consent form.

Before commencing the training, participants underwent pre-testing measures to establish a baseline. The training commenced with a day of breathing meditation to instill basic meditation principles. Following this, the 20-day LKCM practice began, structured into four sections of 5 days each. The first two sections concentrated on loving-kindness meditation for oneself and close ones, while the third section shifted to appreciative joy meditation for the same groups. The final section expanded the scope to include appreciative joy meditation for neutral others. Throughout the training, participants were expected to practice meditation for 12 to 15 min daily using the web application, which provided recorded instructions. Each day's component was completed sequentially, unlocking the next day's session upon completion.

The post-training measures were conducted immediately after the meditation practice on the last day of the training. Participants who did not continue meditation for 5 consecutive days were considered to have withdrawn from the study. As an incentive, 10% of the completers were randomly selected to receive a reward of 400 RMB. All data from the study were being reported for the first time in this article, with plans to use additional data for other research purposes.

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 Subjective 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 Subjective 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. For the three factors of the WPMT, the Cronbach's α coefficients are 0.794 for Kind Attitudes, 0.858 for Subjective Well-being, and 0.807 for Other Benefits, and the McDonald's omega coefficient is 0.732, indicating good reliability. The results 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 = 0.073, η_p² = 0.003). Further exploration showed that participants in study 2 had higher interest than those in study 1 on all three factors (all ps < 0.05). 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 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 subjective 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.

Table 2 Results of pre-test and post-test data of Emotional experience and paired-sample t-tests in study 2

Table 3 The correlation(sig) between Subjective well-being and personal happiness, and the correlation between Kind Attitudes and interpersonal relationship

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 subjective well-being. Of note, although the recruitment did not emphasize subjective 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 subjective 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, the result proved that all participants were willing to engage in the actual meditation intervention in Study 2. 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 Subjective 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 Subjective 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 [29, 30], 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; [49]), 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 [49]. 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 subjective 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 [47], and the doctrine of Buddhism also attaches more importance to kindness toward all-beings than to one’s own happiness [22]. 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., subjective 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 [19]. 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 [19], 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 subjective well-being than cultivating kind attitudes.

On the other hand, the finding that kind attitudes are lesser attractive than subjective well-being and other benefits may reflect a hierarchical progression of needs. Specifically, the first three survey items addressing personal emotional challenges may hold greater immediate relevance for participants, whereas the latter three items focusing on kindness toward others might require prior fulfillment of personal needs. This pattern suggests that achieving personal well-being may serve as a foundation for developing compassionate attitudes. This observation aligns with the idea that modern society follows hedonic values more, where happiness and other benefits that generate happiness are more highly valued than kind attitudes. Alternatively, while self-centeredness could be a potential explanation, the inclusion of self-compassion in the kind attitudes measured in this study suggests that this may not be the sole reason. Future research should explore how to bridge this gap between practitioners'immediate needs and the traditional values of LKCM trainings.

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. In both meditation practice and daily life, while cultivating other factors such as subjective well-being, the cultivation of kind attitudes remains the most important and central goal of LKCMs. For example, LKCM has been considered a promising practice for the cultivation of or education in morality (e.g., [2, 40]). 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 [40]. The current study supports that subjective 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. [49] 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. Indeed, as recent studies have reported [37], mindfulness meditation practices may become ineffective or even have adverse effects if the practitioners'goals are misaligned with the intended outcomes of the meditation itself. Similarly, in this study, participants engaging in Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditations (LKCMs) might have motivations beyond cultivating kind attitudes or subjective well-being. In such cases, the outcomes of the practice and the participants'mental health could potentially be affected.

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 our research, coupled with the questionnaire length constraint, limited both our ability to formulate prior hypotheses and the validity and reliability of our study. We conducted post-hoc explorations and drew conclusions regarding the relationships between certain factors, such as the influence of gender on variations in meditation interest. In terms of measurement, although the measures generated in the current study demonstrate good psychometric properties and resulted in reasonable findings, their validity requires further confirmation, particularly for more direct measurements of experience in Study 2. Another example could be precisely measured in future studies is the division of the three dimensions of meditation interest, which were measured largely drawing support from previous literature. Therefore, future studies could consider using more comprehensive measures for better investigations.

Secondly, in the design and implementation of the experiment, we still encountered some issues. For instance, since we employed real interventions and all participants were required to engage in the intervention exercises, it was difficult to achieve balance and randomization among the participants. At the same time, due to the limitations of the experimental design, the actual situation of the participants, and the scope of the study, we have not yet clarified whether the difference between the aims of other meditations not mentioned in this paper would have similar impacts. Additionally, Due to the fact that the experiments reported currently also serve other studies, the experimental design and data processing parts of the research can be improved in future studies. For example, 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; [24]), 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 [29, 32], which suggested that cultural difference is important when discussing interest in meditation trainings. However, positive psychologists pointed out that Western culture valued more on subjective well-being than Eastern culture [19], 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.

Additionally, future research and practice should consider how to balance the design of LKCM training programs. On one hand, aligning training content with practitioners'immediate needs, such as focusing on enhancing subjective well-being, may increase engagement and adherence. On the other hand, guiding practitioners toward more classical and comprehensive training content, such as cultivating kindness, may better align with the traditional values of LKCM. This balance is crucial for both the effectiveness of the training and its cultural authenticity. Researchers and practitioners should explore whether a hierarchical progression of needs exists, where achieving personal well-being serves as a foundation for developing compassionate attitudes, and how this can be integrated into training programs.