Mark McLaughlin

The purpose of this mixed method interdisciplinary study was to investigate lay individuals’ (i.e., community members’ and college students’) perceptions and understandings of meditation. Within our analytic sample (n = 200), participants completed an online survey. Specifically, we asked each participant to define “meditation” in their own words, and then we used thematic analysis to identify themes from their responses. Further, we analyzed responses to quantitative questions regarding participants’ views on religious/spiritual aspects of meditation. The majority of participants identified as being White, non-Hispanic (72.0%), and female sex at birth (n = 63.5%). Overall, seven distinct themes were identified based on participants’ definitions of meditation: (a)“Religious, Spiritual, and Philosophical”; (b)“Attention/Observing”; (c)“Calming, Grounding, and Relaxation”; (d)“Mindfulness-Oriented”; (e)“Virtue Cultivation”; (f )“Techniques”; and (g)“Solitary Reflection.” Further, 30.5% of participants endorsed that the practice of meditation is spiritual and religious, 39.5% endorsed spiritual but not religious, 1.0% endorsed religious but not spiritual, and 29.0% endorsed neither spiritual nor religious. Several significant differences were found in both theme endorsement and quantitative responses based on prior experience with meditation and religious/spiritual self-identification. Overall, our results suggest that laypeople’s preconceived ideas (or misconceptions) about what meditation is, and what it entails, vary based on prior meditation experience and self-identification with religion and spirituality.