Mindfulness and Atheism Research

[Sara.rahmani]

Dear Mindfulness meditators,

My name is Sara Rahmani. I am writing to invite you to participate in a postdoctoral project, Understanding Unbelief: Mindfulness Meditation, which aims to advance the scientific understanding of atheism and other forms of ‘unbelief’ (religious ‘nones’, agnosticism, humanism, etc).

At its core, this study aims to explore:
(1) what attracts non-religious individuals to Mindfulness Meditation,
(2) what are the shared worldview(s) among non-religious Mindfulness practitioners,
and (3) how does the teachings involved in Mindfulness influence the practitioner’s self-understanding and relationship with others.

If you self-identify as non-religious (in any sense) and wish to contribute to this research, your participation can take two forms: (a) Online questionnaire OR (b) In-depth interviews and questionnaire

(a) Completing our online questionnaire should take about 30 minutes of your time. Alongside psychological measures, it involves answering questions about yourself and your practice of mindfulness. This route is open to non-religious Mindfulness practitioners worldwide. Please don't forget to specify your country of residence so that we could take account of that in our analysis. You can access the questionnaire on this link: https://coventryhls.eu.qualtrics.com/jf ... wwEee3cbop

(b) Full participation will involve two separate sessions of in-depth interviews (in person or via Skype) and online questionnaire. Each session will take between 60-90 minutes, depending on how long you would like to talk. This is a longitudinal study, which means that the second session will take place approximately one year after your initial participation. We are currently seeking participants from the UK and the US (For more information please contact me at sara.rahmani@coventry.ac.uk).

In either case (a or b), you are welcome to enter your name to win one of our two prize draws with the possibility of winning £50/$50 Amazon vouchers.

All interviews (and online questionnaire) are confidential and no identifiable information (such as name, age, occupation, etc.) will be revealed (to anyone other than the researcher) or published anywhere. The study was designed in accordance with the regulations of Coventry University (UK) and it has been approved by their Ethics Committee.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regard
Sara

[MiM]

It was a an interesting survey,with many hard quastions.

I noticed that you did not volunteer to report results of your research to respondents (which I believe would be a much stronger incentive than a lottery). Would it be possible for you to tell here and at other places where you have asked for participation, when you have some results ready?

[JonW]

Good point, MIM.

[Sara.rahmani]

Would it be possible for you to tell here and at other places where you have asked for participation, when you have some results ready?

Excellent point. Yes, we're more than happy to share results (should be ready for publication mid-2019) with all participants. Will make a point of stating that in the online survey (we have included this in our forms, particularly for the interviews). We're also thinking of writing a code for the survey system in such a way to reveal initial results to the participant immediately at the end of the survey (like pop quizzes).

In any case, many thanks for your contribution.

[barbs55]

Did a lovely interview with Sara on her very interesting research today, and I would encourage others to participate

[Gareth]

I'll do an interview.