The Effects of Meditation and Contemplative Prayer on Executive Functioning Ashley Schreiber with Daniel Eckert Discussion The results indicate that short, five-minute practices of meditation as well as contemplative prayer can yield higher levels of executive functioning as measured by a Stroop task, so the hypothesis was not fully supported. Analysis of results indicated that there was a great deal of variability in the Facebook task condition on the Toronto Mindfulness Questionnaire, which may be due to the variability of the News Feeds on Facebook to which each participant was exposed. Also, some participants were recruited from a class which was required to meditate regularly the previous week before the experimental session.. Although the assignment took place a week before the sessions, it is likely that students somewhat continued the practice, experiencing its beneficial effects. However, these participants did not significantly influence the main findings of this research. Future research may consider examining the brain activity of novice participants practicing mediation or contemplative prayer. Also, further experiments may utilize differing tests involving attention or other beneficial effects of brief mediation. References Ferguson, J. K., Willemsen, E. W., & Castañeto, M. V. (2010). Centering prayer as a healing response to everyday stress: A psychological and spiritual process. Pastoral Psychology, 59, doi: /s Moore, A., & Malinowski, P. (2009). Meditation, mindfulness and cognitive flexibility. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 18, doi: /j.concog Ramsburg, J. T., & Youmans, R. J. (2014). Meditation in the higher-education classroom: Meditation training improves student knowledge retention during lectures. Mindfulness, 5, doi: /s Zeidan, F., Johnson, S. K., Diamond, B. J., David, Z., & Goolkasian, P. (2010). Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 19, doi: /j.concog Method Participants Forty-seven Messiah College students (seven male, 40 female) from the ages of 16 to 22 were recruited from Introductory Psychology classes and an Abnormal Psychology class to participate in this research. Sixteen students were randomly assigned to either the control or meditation condition groups, and fifteen were randomly assigned to the contemplative prayer group. Materials Necessary materials used in this study were a bag, stopwatches on phones, and white boards on the doors of three interview rooms. Additionally, three sheets containing a Bible verse, materials for the administration of a Stroop task, and two questionnaires were utilized. Procedure In this study, each participant was escorted to an interview room, in which he or she chose a slip of paper in a bag with one of the three conditions/tasks on it. After reading instructions on their chosen task and understanding how to perform it, participants practiced the assigned activity for five minutes. Directly following this participation, students completed a Stroop task and a questionnaire. Results The means and standard deviations for the Stroop times in seconds for the three conditions can be found in Table 1. Participants who indicated that they do not regularly meditate or never meditate number 21 (45%). Seven participants indicated that they meditated four or more times per week. A one-way ANOVA for the condition and Stroop time variables indicated significance such that F (2, 44) = 4.22, p <.05,  2 part. =.161. In a test of pairwise comparisons, the mean difference between contemplative prayer and the Facebook task was with p <.05, and the mean difference between meditation and the Facebook task was with p <.05. A one-way ANOVA for the conditions and Toronto Mindfulness Questionnaire was conducted, indicating no significance. However, in a test of pairwise comparisons, the conditions of meditation and the Facebook task displayed significance (MD = 7.00, p <.05). Table 1 Introduction The practice of meditation, separated from its religious underpinnings, is growing more popular as a method of improving mental health. New research continues to emerge about the benefits of continued meditation practice. Despite these positives, many individuals struggle to find time to meditate in American fast-paced culture. In light of this, further research is examining the effects of very short practice of meditation. In the 1970s, the abbot Keating at St. Joseph’s Abbey described contemplative prayer as Christian meditation (Ferguson, Willemsen, & Castañeto, 2010). The goal of contemplative prayer may be described as to be in relationship with God (Ferguson et al., 2010). There is not a great deal of valid research on contemplative prayer, although there is a plethora of research on meditation. Ramsburg and Youmans (2014) conducted research in a higher-education setting, finding that participants in their focused attention meditation condition demonstrated better information retention (Ramsburg & Youmans, 2014). Researchers Chan and Woollacott (2007) provided support for the concept that focused and open monitoring meditation improves individuals’ performance on a Stroop task (as cited in Ramsburg & Youmans, 2014). Even brief, four-day mindfulness meditation training for 20 minutes has been shown to improve sustained attentional skills, working memory, and executive functioning (Zeidan, Johnson, Diamond, David, & Goolkasian, 2010). Using the Stroop task to measure an aspect of attention, Moore and Malinowski (2009) found that meditators improved on all measures of attention. This present study used the Stroop task to measure the executive functioning of participants after meditation, contemplative prayer, or the control Facebook task. It is hypothesized that those in the meditation condition will have faster times on the Stroop task than those in the other conditions. Figure 1: Meditation Figure 2: Mandala Figure 4: Hands in Prayer : Figure 5: Zen Scene Figure 3: Rosary rosary-boys-or-girls-men?ref=market