PDF Summary:Altered Traits, by Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson

In recent years, meditation and mindfulness have swept across the West and become popular tools for everything from stress management to productivity, focus, and spiritual seeking. But amidst this excitement, say Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson, the facts have been distorted and the signal has been lost in the noise. In Altered Traits, they clarify what we do and don’t know about meditation—as well as what’s been overhyped.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how they define meditation, why it’s proved difficult to study, and what we know about its effects. We’ll also discuss what the research on meditation shows: that meditation alters traits, or produces lasting changes to your brain, behavior, and experience of life. Throughout the guide, we’ll comment on related research and perspectives, and we’ll broaden the authors’ discussion of traditional Buddhism, Buddhist terminology, and Buddhism in the West.

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Now that we’ve shared how the authors define meditation, we’ll explain why it’s been so challenging to study. As they say, meditation research is a young and rapidly growing field, and much of the difficulty in understanding meditation arises from confusion about what it is, how to distinguish the forms it takes, and how to properly measure its effects.

In this section, we’ll detail the broad basis for meditation research (neuroplasticity, or the brain’s innate ability to adapt to stimulation). We’ll also describe the common misunderstandings and mistakes made in meditation research. Last, we’ll explain why it’s crucial to remain vigilant against hype when evaluating research and claims about meditation.

Meditation Induces Neuroplasticity to Change the Brain

When the authors first pushed to study meditation, the conventional academic perspective was against them. Most serious research scientists thought that meditation was too subjective or woo-woo, and that the mind was a black box—impossible to study rigorously.

Despite this resistance, the authors hypothesized early on that meditation could produce the titular “altered traits”—lasting changes to people’s basic characteristics. Depending on how you meditate, these can include increased stress resilience, emotional intelligence, and cognitive capacities such as attention, focus, and more.

(Shortform note: The authors’ use of the term “altered traits” builds on the conventional way that psychologists use “traits” to refer to a person’s relatively fixed characteristics. The idea that you can alter traits runs in the face of long-standing ideas that we don’t and can’t change much throughout our lives. While researchers now recognize that traits can be altered, as we’ll discuss soon, the fact that this may only happen in response to long-term meditation practice suggests that the traditional theories aren’t entirely wrong, either. That is, for most people, traits do remain fairly stable throughout life.)

Early on, the techniques available to measure the effects of meditation weren’t effective enough. However, the discovery of neuroplasticity provided a broad, scientifically viable basis for their research.

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change in response to some activity or stimulus. For instance, research on rats found that their brain health worsened after they were merely placed closer to unhealthy rats. When it comes to meditation, the discovery of neuroplasticity made it reasonable to claim that meditation could alter the brain. And as it turns out, the authors explain, the mental training of meditation does physically modify the structure, size, and functioning of brain tissue. As a result, traits that relate to those brain changes can shift as well.

(Shortform note: While neuroplasticity is an exciting and promising discovery, keep in mind that the brain isn’t infinitely plastic. As you age, plasticity tends to decline in proportion to how actively you use your brain—specifically, by stepping outside of your comfort zone and challenging yourself to develop new skills, cognitive capacities, and so on. If you want to stay mentally fit as you age, meditation is a good way to do so. Other plasticity-stimulating activities include learning a second language, learning a musical instrument, or journaling and writing regularly.)

Mistakes and Misconceptions in Research

Despite this evidence of the positive effects of meditation, it remains difficult to study. Research on meditation varies in quality, and mistakes and misconceptions can stand in the way of rigorous work.

Mistaking the Peaks for the Path

According to the authors, many researchers mistake the highs that meditation produces—states of deeply absorbed awareness, for instance—for the whole thing. However, they say, these highs are just temporary states that are more akin to an exercise high than a lasting gain in meditative capability.

For another analogy, consider weightlifting. When you work out, you get a pump—a temporary increase in the size of your muscles. But these pumps aren’t your gains—the lasting increases in the size and function of your muscles. In meditation, the high states are the pumps and the gains are the altered traits. When research focuses on temporary peaks as outcomes, it misses the broader picture of meditation as a long-term process with long-term aims.

(Shortform note: One reason that some Western researchers may have mistaken meditative highs for lasting gains is that in the West, people tend to focus on goals and outcomes rather than processes—ends, rather than means. This may reflect the “protestant ethic” that Max Weber argues gave rise to the productivity-oriented culture of the United States. Perhaps because of this cultural bias toward tangible goals, some Western researchers struggle to see meditation as a life-long practice with many intangible features—like deeply personal realizations reached while sitting—that can’t be measured or quantified.)

Researcher Bias

Another issue is researcher bias, wherein the person conducting the study may unconsciously design the experiment, interpret the findings, or otherwise skew outcomes in ways that support their hypothesis. Goleman admits that in doing his own research, he once skewed the results by expecting what he wanted to see and then interpreting the data to fit those hopes.

(Shortform note: According to Rolf Dobelli in The Art of Thinking Clearly, cognitive biases feature throughout our lives in ways we rarely, if ever, notice. One bias that can affect research is the “story bias,” in which we tend to prefer satisfying narratives over boring, rational facts. In studies where the data might suggest a pattern, but also might not, this bias could lead a researcher to find meaning where there may be none. Another relevant bias is the self-selection bias, wherein only people who feel comfortable participating in studies tend to do so. For example, the participants in a study could skew toward people who already practice meditation, so the study’s results wouldn’t reflect how meditation might affect the general population.)

Misunderstanding “Mindfulness”

Another key mistake arises from the ambiguity surrounding the term “mindfulness.” Many studies take it as a catchall term for meditation. According to the authors, it was originally meant as a translation of sati (the path of insight that the Buddha taught). However, it’s often incorrectly conflated with vipassana, the practice by which many Western meditators practice sati.

Because of the range of studies that have used mindfulness as a general term, it now means a wide variety of things. Accordingly, the authors say that many studies mistakenly lump research subjects who come from different meditation backgrounds into one general category. Because of this, the research isn’t precise enough to draw useful conclusions from.

For instance, a study might lump together practitioners from Zen, traditional Theravada, Tibetan Dzogchen, and Western mindfulness methods, thinking they’re essentially the same. But they aren’t—and because the study doesn’t distinguish between them, the authors would likely say that the results aren’t rigorous enough to support firm assertions.

(Shortform note: Perhaps inspired by the authors’ ideas above, a 2021 analysis published in the journal Mindfulness took on this very issue. The authors compiled over 300 distinct forms of meditation and categorized them into 50 fundamental techniques. They then asked over 600 experienced meditators to evaluate this set of techniques for completeness. Only two more had to be added, resulting in a new taxonomy of meditation that can be used as a tool for any future studies to get more precise about what they want to study, as the authors stress must happen.)

Hyperbole and Exaggeration

Although the rapidly increasing interest in meditation is a positive development, the authors explain that more than ever, we must remain vigilant against hype.

Fields with spiritual roots, such as this one, are prone to frauds and hucksters, and today, businesses and advertisers are keen to cash in on the excitement. Many will overpromise the benefits of their products to sell apps, courses, and other tools. For these reasons, the authors stress the need to remain skeptical and rigorous in evaluating the data and determining what’s actually true about meditation.

(Shortform note: Marketing has both upsides and downsides when it comes to mindfulness. On the upside, Western-style marketing has unarguably spread mindfulness and meditation to a larger audience than ever before. This has led to countless adaptations of the techniques that have helped people reduce stress, feel more at peace with life, and generally improve their well-being. On the downside, some argue that all of this marketing has spawned “McMindfulness,” a co-opting of these techniques for nefarious purposes. For instance, one expert argues that corporate mindfulness training serves to pacify an increasingly stressed, depressed, and disengaged workforce and, in doing so, shifts attention away from the systemic causes of these issues.)

According to the authors, the most widely touted benefits of meditation aren’t all they’re cracked up to be—and the benefits that are most supported by research remain undersung. We’ll look at what researchers really know in the next section.

Meditation: What We Know and What We Don’t

Up to this point, we’ve discussed what meditation is and why it’s essential to carefully assess research and stay vigilant to hyperbole. Next, we’ll look at what the best studies do say about the effects that meditation has on the mind and the meditator.

Effect 1: Meditation Can Train Your Attention

Broadly put, meditation trains your attention, and this can improve related cognitive functions as you age. Different practices can boost various aspects of attention, and lasting benefits come with sustained practice, much as lasting muscular changes require continual training. According to the authors, both traditional and secular ways of meditating have been found to influence different aspects of attention:

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training, a popular modern method that Jon Kabat-Zinn created, can temporarily strengthen selective attention (your ability to choose what you focus on). MBSR is a secular eight-week program that aims to reduce stress, anxiety, pain, and other ills.
• Insight meditation (vipassana) may produce a trait change related to selective attention. Research suggests that consistent, long-term practice can make it more effortless to find and rest in a state of focused awareness.
• Mindfulness can reduce the damage that multitasking does to sustained attention. Research shows that whereas multitasking harms your ability to focus, as little as eight minutes of basic, secular mindfulness practice can restrengthen attention.

Is Meditation the Only Way to Train Attention?

In light of reports on our declining attention spans, this research is great news. Further, meditation might not be the only way to improve your attention. In Proust and the Squid, Maryanne Wolf contends that what and how we read also affects our attention spans. Specifically, she says that the short, sound-bite-driven information landscape of the modern day is shortening our attention spans, reducing our focus, and changing the structure of our brains.

To address this problem, she advocates for “deep reading”—basically, the more time you spend immersed in good books and long-form writing, the more you’ll improve your attention span, focus, and ability to lose yourself in deep thought.

Research seems to support Wolf’s position: One study found that reading can strengthen selective attention, producing a similar result to those found in studies of MBSR. However, no studies suggest that reading can produce trait changes related to selective attention, so reading may not train attention as effectively as vipassana. As for sustained attention, reading srelies heavily on your capacity to stay focused. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that reading improves sustained attention, it suggests that reading and mindfulness could work well together as ways to train and practice skills related to attention.

Effect 2: Meditation Can Help You Cultivate Compassion

Next, the authors explain that meditation can train you to feel positive emotions more deeply. These results come largely from research on loving-kindness meditation, or metta—a practice of extending compassion to yourself, those close to you, and all living beings.

According to the authors, prosocial emotions (positive feelings for other people) fall along a spectrum. On one end is simple empathy, or feeling for someone who’s suffering. In the middle is compassion, or feeling with them, and on the other end is altruism, or feeling strongly enough to actually help another person. Research indicates that loving-kindness meditation (practiced using traditional or secular means) may:

• Increase the odds that the practitioner actively helps someone who appears to be suffering. That is, metta predisposes people to altruistic action.
• Enhance empathy by activating brain circuits that process prosocial emotions as well as those that prime the body to respond to the suffering of others.
• Induce swifter changes to the brain than attention-based meditations—eight hours of metta can expand brain circuitry related to compassion, and sixteen hours may weaken the meditator’s implicit biases (or unconscious prejudices).

Meditation’s Effect on Prosocial Emotions Isn’t Clear-cut

In a meta-analysis of studies on meditation and compassion, researchers found that meditation may have a more limited effect on pro-social behaviors than previously thought. They report that prosocial emotions appear only to increase during interventions in which the meditation teacher was also a co-author of the study. Further, they found that current research doesn’t support the conclusion that meditation decreases prejudice or aggression.

This meta-analysis of studies also demonstrates Goleman and Davidson’s points about the need for rigor. On the one hand, it only includes randomized controlled trials, which is a strong positive in their view. On the other hand, it groups together different kinds of meditations under “mindfulness,” a practice that they critique.

Effect 3: Meditation Can Transform Your Sense of Self

Pivoting away from these tangible benefits, the authors turn to meditation’s relationship with your sense of self. Traditional meditative paths aim to release the practitioner's conventional sense of self—the persistent feeling and belief that “I am this person”—so they can reach nirvana. Emerging neuroscience might explain this goal: Research has begun to discover how the brain constructs your sense of self and how meditation may loosen the circuits that produce it.

As the authors explain, your sense of self comes from the brain’s default mode network (DMN), or the baseline state of absent-minded thinking and rumination that you experience daily. The DMN comes online when you’ve nothing in particular to do. It manifests as a persistent narrative voice that centers on yourself, monologuing about your day, your experiences, your pains and stressors, as well as experiences past and those yet to come.

By way of that continually unfolding narrative voice, you come to personally identify with your thoughts, emotions, sensations, pains, and so on. They all become your experience and constitute you. As a result, you have a distinct sense of self; a feeling that I am this person.

(Shortform note: In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle characterizes the persistent voice in your head as your ego, which he describes as an internal entity that controls your mind and behavior. It creates your identity based on different pieces of information, including your job, income, relationships, health, appearance, and so on. It becomes so central to your life that you start to think that you are your ego. If we suppose that Tolle’s concept of the ego is akin to the sense of self that the default mode network produces, and that people tend to identify with the ego, it follows that you can get stuck in a narrow view of yourself. That is, you might over-identify as your internal monologue without realizing that it’s just how you experience your brain’s idle mode.)

According to the authors, research has begun to show that meditation can lessen the DMN activity that creates this sense of self. In doing so, meditation leads the practitioner to a subjective experience with less definite boundaries between self and other. Studies indicate that:

• Mindfulness and loving-kindness meditations can both reduce the activity of the DMN. Scans show that in early stages, meditation strengthens brain circuits that inhibit DMN activity. In later stages, meditation begins to unwire the connections within the DMN itself.
• Lessened DMN activity begins as a temporary experience of ease and selflessness. With long-term practice, it can become a lasting trait. That is, the meditator’s sense of self weakens and her awareness becomes more tranquil.

(Shortform note: These findings on mindfulness and loving-kindness meditations parallel research findings on psychedelics, another known way to lessen the activity of the DMN. Whereas these meditations seem to inhibit DMN activity, psychedelics can produce full-on “ego death,” or complete dissolution of your sense of self. Research suggests that both may contribute to long-term trait changes toward selflessness. That is, permanently lessened DMN activity, from either meditation or psychedelics, seems to both weaken your sense of self and get you acting more selflessly. As of yet, the full extent of these effects isn’t known.)

Effect 4: Meditation May Improve Emotional Health

According to the authors, meditation has had a largely positive impact on psychotherapy and psychiatry, two modern Western approaches to healing the mind. At the same time, there isn’t enough evidence yet to say that meditation is broadly effective at treating mental health challenges. But the research is ongoing, and many psychologists have begun to experiment with meditation as a treatment tool in practical settings. Much of this research centers on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and studies indicate that:

• Basic MBCT training may be viable as a treatment for depression. Some studies found it to be similarly effective to medication, yet lacking negative chemical side effects.
• Mindfulness training may also reduce anxiety. Research has found that basic mindfulness practice helps patients let go of patterns of negative self-talk and thereby reduce their anxiety.
• Loving-kindness meditation may help people suffering from trauma, such as those with PTSD. Specifically, it may help them process their trauma and reduce symptoms such as panic attacks.

(Shortform note: More recent research indicates that MBCT works even better when combined with pharmaceutical medications—in a study on the relapse rate of depression, MBCT plus standard medications achieved a 12.31% relapse rate, less than half that of the control group. As for anxiety, a 2022 study found that mindfulness training is at least as effective as escitalopram, a common anxiety medication. Regarding loving-kindness, some practitioners have combined their metta practices with entheogens such as MDMA, which also show promise in healing trauma.)

As a cautionary note, the authors say that a small number of long-term meditators who explore meditation as a psychotherapeutic tool experience intense bouts of psychological distress at a certain point along the path. These cases are rare, however, and the research largely supports the promise of meditation-based approaches to therapy.

(Shortform note: While this so-called “dark night” of meditation-induced distress might be rare, it’s worth pausing to consider. Some anecdotal reports indicate that negative changes to a meditator’s psyche can last for months or can even be irreversible. In part, this may be due to the proliferation of easy-to-access meditation programs that lack real guidance from experienced teachers. Playing on the authors’ earlier analogy, meditating through an app is a bit like learning to deadlift from an app—the basic information is there, but there’s no teacher to tailor the lessons to your needs or to care for you if things start to go awry. So keep in mind that meditation, like weight training or running or sports, isn’t without risks.)

Effect 5: Meditation May Benefit Physical Health

What about the effects meditation may have on your physical health? According to the authors, the research shows promise yet remains tentative. Findings indicate that:

• MBSR may help palliative care patients experience less suffering, likely by helping them change their relationship with pain rather than removing the pain altogether.
• Short-term mindfulness training appears to reduce cellular inflammation. These benefits ramp up over time, and they may eventually become a trait effect—that is, long-term meditators seem to experience less inflammation over the long term.
• Three months of practicing mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation can increase levels of telomerase (a protein that helps cells reproduce) and thereby slow aging.
• Long-term meditation may improve brain health. Research shows that meditators often have increased brain volume, though the evidence remains inconclusive.

Are Tentative Findings Enough to Act On?

While it’s still early, the research suggests that meditation, especially mindfulness-based practices like MBSR, can provide tangible physical health benefits. How might you apply these in practice? In general, establishing a consistent meditation practice could help optimize your physical health in several key areas:

• You don’t need to be a palliative care patient to change your relationship with suffering. Practicing MBSR could change your experience of pain in general or of the pain caused by illness.

• The anti-inflammatory effects observed from even short mindfulness training suggest that it could help you address any sort of inflammation—for instance, it could be worth trying if you get headaches or migraines.

• The findings on increased neural volume in meditators hint at potential benefits to brain and cognitive health. For instance, if meditation can help increase brain volume, it might also slow neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's.

As the research continues, these effects and others may find more solid ground. Nonetheless, the existing evidence is compelling enough that anyone interested in improving their overall health and well-being would do well to practice some form of meditation.

Traditional Meditators Experience the Deepest Effects

Last, the authors discuss the longitudinal research they performed on living masters of meditation. Much of their data comes from studies of the brain of Tibetan yogi Mingyur Rinpoche. Mingyur Rinpoche began meditating at nine years old and hails from a lineage of teachers and masters of Tibetan Buddhism.

(Shortform note: Mingyur Rinpoche is also the author of five books as well as the head teacher of Tergar, a community that teaches meditation practices to both secular and Buddhist students. Mingyur Rinpoche comes from the Nyingma, or “Ancient School,” lineage of Buddhism that originated in the eighth and ninth centuries when Tibetan kings began inviting Buddhist practitioners and scholars to Tibet.)

The authors’ lab studied Mingyur Rinpoche’s brain with electroencephalographic (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technologies. EEG measures brain activity across time, whereas fMRI measures it across the three-dimensional space of the brain. With these variables, scientists can locate brain activity in time and space. The results of three studies of Mingyur Rinpoche’s brain—in 2002, 2010, and 2016—include:

• When instructed to meditate on compassion, he was able to generate huge surges of brain activity in the areas that correspond to such positive emotions. The authors measured spikes of 700% to 800% in activity compared to resting levels.
• According to anatomical measures of brain health on standard distribution established by neuroscientists, Rinpoche’s brain fell in the 99th percentile for men of his age (41 years at the time). That is, his brain was as fit as that of a typical 33-year-old man.

(Shortform note: While there doesn’t seem to have been any further research conducted on Mingyur Rinpoche since the authors’ reports in the book, the master continues to advocate widely for the benefits of meditation and the importance of studying it scientifically. He recommends starting with five minutes of meditation daily for 30 days, beyond which he suggests you’ll feel greater control over your impulses. He also argues that meditation changes the “set point” of your happiness. A set point is a balance that your body and mind work to maintain, such as your weight, which you can lower by fasting. If meditation is like fasting from impulsivity, it might lower the set point of your happiness so that you need less to feel good.)

Trait Changes in Meditation Masters

The authors say that data collection and analysis of meditation masters is ongoing. They’ve worked thus far with twenty-one meditation masters—yogis with thousands of hours of lifetime practice—and the data are promising. In general, long-term meditation does appear to produce genuine trait effects. The resting states of the brains of these yogis displayed complex, highly developed gamma wave activity. In other words, initial brain scans suggest that these yogis genuinely do live in states of tranquility, bliss, and presence that characterize nirvana, as Buddhist tradition claims.

(Shortform note: The gamma wave scans that the authors describe hint at a potentially valid scientific basis for enlightenment—and in Stealing Fire, Stephen Kotler and Jamie Wheal report similar findings from other studies on Tibetan monks. These monks appeared to have a distinct mix of neurochemicals at play in their brains when in deep meditation. While the neurochemical signature of resting consciousness is a mix of norepinephrine and cortisol, the advanced meditators had higher levels of dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin.)

Several other findings further support the conclusion that meditation masters do experience profound, tranquil states. Studies on the yogis’ brains found that while at rest, they exhibited extraordinary responses related to:

• Pain: The yogis’ brains exhibited an effortless response to pain. They demonstrated neither the anticipatory anxiety nor the lingering stress that normal people feel—instead, they appeared to experience pain as it came and to not stress over it at all.
• Focus: The yogis’ brains could effortlessly deploy different functions of attention. They easily switched the objects of their attention, showed sustained attention, and demonstrated deep focus.
• Compassion: The yogis’ brains showed a stronger connection to the nervous system circuitry of their hearts. This connection manifested as an extraordinarily strong neural response that primed the body for altruistic behavior in the face of suffering.

All of this suggests that altered traits are real and that the ordinary mode of consciousness that we take as a fixed fact of life isn’t set in stone. Lifelong training in meditation, the data suggest, genuinely changes your brain. And in doing so, it can transform your subjective experience of life and reality, the quality of your conscious awareness, and the behaviors that flow from that more enlightened way of being.

Altered Traits Demonstrate How Malleable We Are

These meditation-induced trait effects reveal that the brain is far more malleable than we once believed. Only decades ago, the view was that many of our traits and behaviors were more or less genetically predetermined and that they solidified in early development. While neuroplasticity was accepted in basic sensory and motor domains, the idea of radically altered traits has seemed far-fetched until recently.

Today, these deep transformations exhibited by the yogis give legs to the emerging scientific appreciation for just how open and reprogrammable the brain remains throughout life. Given committed practice, even our most entrenched mental patterns can be changed.

This means that if we can establish ways of training these capacities—even at a basic level—in a wider range of people, the potential for human goodness may expand greatly. Put another way, the remarkable brains of these yogis may suggest that human nature can’t be understood as simply as “people are fundamentally good or bad,” but that it’s something over which we have a good deal of influence.