Personality Trait Predictors of Barriers to Meditation in a Sample of University Students

Background:  Meditation has been successfully applied to a number of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and severe health anxiety (Klainin-Yobas, Cho, & Creedy, 2011; Chiesa & Serretti, 2010).  Retention rates, however, are low in studies of meditation. Cavanagh, Strauss, Forder, and Jones (2014) found that on average across studies, only 48% of participants completed their meditative intervention.   Empirical study of barriers to meditation is therefore of value.  There is evidence that Big Five Personality traits predict barriers to meditation (Williams, Dixon, Van Ness & McCorkle, 2011).  However, this study has not been replicated with young adults.  Since it is known that young adults have an unusually high prevalence of anxiety disorders (Remes, Brayne & LaFortune, 2014) a study of barriers to meditation focusing on this population is imperative.

Methods:  We conducted an electronic survey of students at a large Midwestern university.  Participants were recruited from two list serves.  Two separate surveys were administered.  The Determinants of Meditation Practice Inventory (Williams, Dixon, McCorkle and Van Ness, 2011) assesses such perceived barriers to meditation practice as restlessness, boredom and concern that it might conflict with the participant’s religion.  The Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999) measures the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness vs. antagonism, conscientiousness vs. lack of direction, extraversion vs. introversion, openness vs. closedness to experience and neuroticism vs. emotional stability.  The survey also included several background and demographic questions, including gender, time spent on work and school, whether the participants meditated and what meditation they practiced.

Results:  Ninety-three students responded.  Sixty-nine percent of participants reported practicing meditation, while thirty one percent did not.  Of those who practiced meditation, mindfulness meditation was by far the most common choice, with eighty-two percent practicing this form of meditation.  Regression modeling demonstrated that only two variables predicted participants’ self-reported barriers to meditation.  Not surprisingly, participants who meditated reported fewer barriers (B = 7.099, SE = 3.065, p = .031).  Participants who scored as being more neurotic reported more barriers (B = 0.639, SE=0.264, P=0.026).  No other personality traits predicted barriers.  Time spent in work or school did not predict barriers.

Implications:  Trait neuroticism has frequently been found to predict the presence of mood disorders, including anxiety disorders (Paulus, Vanwoerden, Norton & Sharp, 2015; Newby, Pitura, Penny & Klein, 2017).  A positive correlation between trait neuroticism and perceived barriers to meditation raises the discomfiting possibility that individuals who might benefit the most from the practice of meditation are more likely to perceive barriers to the practice.  Social workers who use meditation as a treatment for mood disorders among young adults should be aware that they may need to work through barriers to meditation with their clients, perhaps adapting cognitive behavioral therapy to do so.  They should also have alternative treatments available for those clients who decide not to meditate.