THE TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION PROGRAM AND CREATIVITY

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1 PAPER 63 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION PROGRAM AND CREATIVITY MICHAEL J. MACCALLUM, M.A. Graduate Department of Psychology, California State University at Long Beach, Long Beach, California Research completed June Subjects practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique showed increased fluency, flexibility, and originality of creative thought.-editors Research indicates that the Transcendental Meditation program leads to self-actualization. Therefore, Transcendental Meditation and creativity should be positively related. The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, Verbal FormA, was used to compare 41 subjects who had just learned the Transcendental Meditation technique with 44long-term meditators. A questionnaire showed the two groups to be equivalent in age, sex, education, and income level. The long-term meditators scored significantly higher on all three scales of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (p <.1), indicating that the Transcendental Meditation program increases creativity. INTRODUCTION METHOD Research has shown the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program, as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, to be of great general benefit to the individual. Although strictly a mental technique, TM produces profound physiological rest (13, 14, 15), the effects of which continue outside of the meditation period in the form of improved physiological, psychological, and behavioral functioning. Indeed, the generality of the benefits of Transcendental Meditation warrants the postulation that TM leads to self-actualization. This has been confirmed in several studies (1, 3, 6, 7, 1 ). Since self-actualization and creativity are considered to be closely related (5, 8), the Transcendental Meditation program should also be associated with gains in creativity. Although he does not use the term "selfactualization," Maharishi has stated that the regular practice of TM develops a person's full potential, one aspect of which is creative potential (4, pp. 9-11). The hypothesis of the present study was that TM and creativity are positively related and that people who had been practicing TM for a long time would therefore score higher on a measure of creativity than demographically similar new meditators. The measure used to test this hypothesis was the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), which was developed to represent a model of the creative thinking process described by eminent scientific researchers, inventors, and creative writers (11). The test thus permits vast freedom of expression within a slightly structured framework. SUBJECTS-The subjects were chosen by the cluster sampling method (9) in which two similar, intact groups were compared. The experimental group consisted of 47 longterm meditators (mean 1.5 yrs) attending a weekend advanced course of the TM program in Santa Barbara, California. Of the 47, two declined to participate and one turned in an incomplete test booklet, thus reducing the experimental group to 44 subjects (21 males and 23 females). The control group also began with 47 subjects, but four declined to participate and two turned in incomplete tests, reducing the number to 41 (22 males and 19 females). Four groups of eight, nine, 12, and 18 control subjects, respectively, learned the TM technique on four different Saturdays and were tested the day after they were instructed. The two groups were equivalent in the demographic dimensions polled (age, sex, education, and income level), as shown in table 1. MATERIALS-The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, Verbal Form A, available from Personnel Press, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, was used as the measure of creativity. The TTCThas seven sections, called "activities," and yields three scores:, the number of responses;, the number of different categories of responses used; and, the response frequency compared with a normative sample. A demographic questionnaire was used to elicit the 41

2 MACCALLUM INTELLIGENCE, LEARNING, AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: CREATIVITY -PAPER 63 VARIABLE Age (years) Education (years) Experience with TM (years) Sex: Males Females Yearly income: $-5, $5,-1, $1,-2, Over $2, No response TABLE 1 DEMOGRAPHIC DATA EXPERIMENTAL VS. CONTROL GROUPS EXPERIMENTAL GROUP N CONTROL GROUP N information appearing in table 1 and to provide the link between test and personal data, as subjects were asked to record their TTCT test booklet identification number on the questionnaire. PROCEDURE-Each test booklet was marked with an identification number from one to 12; the tests were then shuffled before they were distributed so that the numbers would not be in order. Testing sessions were arranged by the experimenter, but to guard against bias another person, who was unconnected with the study and who was not informed of the exact nature of the hypothesis under investigation, was asked to administer the tests. The experimental subjects (long-term meditators) were tested first, all in a single session. They were approached for the first time at a Saturday afternoon meeting during their weekend course and were told the following in an informal way: 1. Much of the research that has been done on TM so far has been physiological, rather than psychological, in nature. 2. We are interested in determining how styles of thinking change due to the practice of TM. 3. This research is being done through California State College at Long Beach. 4. Your participation is voluntary. 5. However, this group has been chosen as a representative sample, and as such it is important that it remains intact. Therefore, please participate if at all possible. Then testing began. The control subjects were first contacted on a Thursday evening at an introductory lecture on the TM program. All those interested in learning TM were asked to participate in the study. The same five points mentioned to the experimental group were covered. In addition, the control group was told that the study was in no way connected with their instruction in Transcendental Meditation. The control subjects received their instruction in TM on a Saturday, and the testing session took place Sunday afternoon, just prior to a regularly scheduled follow-up meeting on TM. Because there were not enough people learning TM on any one Saturday to fulfill the needs of the study, the control subjects were tested in four groups of eight, nine, 12, and 18 subjects, respectively, on four different Sundays. The examiner kept all materials in his possession until testing was complete and then turned them over to the experimenter for evaluation. The demographic questionnaires were set aside, unexamined, and the tests were scored blind with only the random numbers as identification. Scoring the TTCT was fairly difficult, and responses that did not readily conform to the examples provided in the scoring guide were common. For this reason a variation was introduced in the scoring procedure. Rather than scoring each test completely before going on to the next, the experimenter scored a given activity across all subjects before going on to the next activity. Each activity was scored twice. The first time all readily scorable responses were scored, and all that were not readily scorable were copied onto a sheet of paper. With all of the hard-toscore responses recorded in one place, groups of similar responses could be identified, and thus scoring became easier and more uniform. To check the objectivity of the scoring procedure, a random sample of ten tests was given to an elementary school teacher, who was unconnected with the study, for comparison scoring. The interscorer reliability coefficients, calculated from the raw scores, were found to be the following: r =.97 r =.89 r =.92 When the scoring was complete, the demographic questionnaires were examined, and the tests were divided according to experimental and control groups. Following the T-Score conversion contained in the Norms Technical Manual ( 12), all raw scores were converted to T-Scores, which were then used for statistical analysis, except where otherwise noted. 411

3 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION PROGRAM: COLLECTED PAPERS, VOL. I RESULTS The mean T-Scores for the experimental and control groups were compared with the means of the normative sample upon which the TTCT is based. Although the T-Scores are based on fifth-grade data, the author claims that they are appropriate for other groups as well (12, p. 71). The mean T-Scores for the control group cluster about the normative sample mean, whereas those for the experimental group lie consistently above the normative mean. The mean T-Scores, along with the mean raw scores, are presented in table 2 and figs. 1, 2, and 3. Scores for each of the three scales (,, and ) were compared between groups by a one-way analysis of variance, and the strength of association between scale scores and group membership was calculated by squaring the point-biserial correlation coefficient. The results appear in table 3. The long-term meditators scored significantly higher than the new meditators on each of the three-scales (p <. 1). However, the point-biserial correlation was relatively low in each case, indicating that factors in addition to differences in length of time meditating contributed significantly to the differences in creativity scores, as would be expected. These differences between groups were examined more closely. Since the scale, which is simply the number of responses, yielded both the largest F and highest strength of association, it appeared useful to ascertain how and scores varied between groups after taking into account the difference in number of responses. This was done by calculating partial correlations. The correlation between group membership and score with partialed out was found to be The correlation between group membership TABLE 2 DATA SUMMARY RAW SCORES AND T-SCORES EXPERIMENTAL GROUP CONTROL GROUP SCALE Raw Scores T-Scores Raw Scores T-Scores 'I 7 - lllllllllll FIG. 1. SCORES FOR FLUENCY SCALE. The figure shows T-Scores for the experimental group (long-term meditators) and the control group (new meditators) on the scale ofthe Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. I: FIG. 2. SCORES FOR FLEXIBILITY SCALE. The figure shows T-Scores for the experimental group (long-term meditators) and the control group (new meditators) on the scale of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. 412

4 MACCALLUM INTELLIGENCE, LEARNING, AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: CREATIVITY -PAPER 63 TABLE 3 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE OF TRANSFORMED TORRANCE SCALE SCORES FOR EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL GROUPS SCALE BETWEEN GROUPS Square df ERROR Square df F p <.1 <.1 < and score with partialed out was found to be.4. Neither of these correlations was significant. The data from the experimental group were examined to determine if there was any relationship between the test scores and self-reported length of experience with the TM program. Pearson product-moment correlations, based on length of experience with TM and the three scale scores for each individual, did not differ significantly from zero, although all were in the opposite direction from that expected:, -.12;, -.8; and, -.9. Since the distribution of length of experience with TM among experimental subjects was quite skewed, another test was performed. One-way analyses of variance, comparing the third of the experimental group that reported the least experience with TM (.8 to.33 years) with the third reporting the most experience (2. to 5.5 years), revealed no significant differences on any of the scales. Finally, it was of interest to check the degree to which the three scales of the TTCT were intercorrelated for all subjects. The intercorrelations were all quite large and slightly higher than those presented by Torrance ( 12): - r =.89 - r =.85 - r =.8 DISCUSSION As hypothesized, long-term meditators scored higher than similar new meditators on all three scales of the TTCT. The results show that with the number of responses held constant, long-term and new meditators did not differ in originality or flexibility. This is not surprising, given the high intercorrelations among the three TTCT scales, which suggest that these scales are not actually measuring different aspects of the creative process. In general, long-term meditators appeared to be able to produce a greater number of original responses over a wider range of topics than new meditators. The lack of correlation between length of experience with TM and creativity within the group of long-term meditators deserves some comment. Several explanations are possible: 1. Increased creativity and experience with TM have been shown to be positively related, but in the present study some unknown factor-perhaps some selection artifact among weekend course participants-reduced the correlations without appreciably affecting the differences in TTCT scores found between the experimental and control groups. 2. Perhaps the relationship between TM and creativity as measured by the TTCT follows a discontinuous function, and a discrete jump in creativity scores occurs shortly after the practice is begun with no subsequent increase. This jump may be produced as the body rhythms adjust to the two new periods of rest per day. 3. It is quite possible that the TTCT is sensitive to initial changes that occur shortly after beginning Transcendental Meditation, but is incapable of measuring more subtle but equally significant changes that subsequently occur. u V"J E-.!. :;... E-o - -< z r FIG. 3. SCORES FOR ORIGINALITY SCALE. The figure shows T-Scores for the experimental group (long-term meditators) and the control group (new meditators) on the scale of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. 413

5 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION PROGRAM: COLLECTED PAPERS, VOL. I 4. Dissonance theory (2) predicts that those subjects highly committed to the TM program would experience dissonance if the results of the study were to be unfavorable to TM and would therefore be more highly motivated than a group of uncommitted meditators. However, motivational differences due to the dissonance effect probably do not account for the results; short-term meditators, noticing immediate change in their lives, are often as enthusiastic about TM as long-term meditators, and therefore would presumably be as highly motivated to produce test results favorable to TM. Unfortunately, the present study did not control for the possibility of differences in motivation between the long-term and short-term meditators. In future studies the dissonance effect should be avoided by an improved experimental design. 5. Another explanation is in terms of the wide range of creative abilities among subjects at the time they began the Transcendental Meditation: technique. For example, for the group of subjects in this study who had just begun the Transcendental Meditation technique, creativity scores on the scale ranged from 3.4 to (the mean± 2 standard deviations). In a study of a cross section of TM meditators who had been practicing the technique for different amounts of time, differences in the initial level of creativity would obscure the effects of length of time practicing the technique. One three-year TM meditator may have started at a much higher level of creativity than another three-year TM meditator. Therefore, one would not expect to find fixed levels of creativity associated with specific lengths of time practicing the technique. However, the fact that the group of subjects practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique as a whole increased in creativity compared to a group of new TM meditators suggests that the technique increases creativity in all individuals, irrespective of their initial creative abilities. CONCLUSION Research has shown that the TM program affects a wide range of physiological, psychological, and sociological variables. It was postulated in this study that these broad effects occur because Transcendental Meditation leads to self-actualization. Further, it was hypothesized that since self-actualization and creativity are positively related, TM and creativity would also be positively related. The results of the present study indicate the existence of a relationship between TM and creativity and therefore provide further support for the postulation that the Transcendental Meditation program does lead to self-actualization. TM has been shown to be of great general benefit to the individual. The present study describes a preliminary examination of one of these benefits. The differences in creativity found between the two groups demand exploration in greater detail in well-controlled, longitudinal studies employing different measures of creativity. REFERENCES 1. FERGUSON, P. C., and GOWAN, J. C. In press. Psychological findings on Transcendental Meditation. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 2. FESTINGER, L A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 3. HJELLE, L. A Transcendental Meditation and psychological health. Perceptual and Motor Skills 39: MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI The science of being and art of living. (Rev. ed.) Los Angeles: International SRM Publications. 5. MASLOW, A. H The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Viking Press. 6. NIDICH, S.; SEEMAN, W.; and DRESKIN, T Influence of Transcendental Meditation: A replication. Journal of Counseling Psychology 2: RME-JOHNSON, D. W., and DucK, B Psychological testing ofmiu students: First report. (Published in this volume.) 8. RoGERS, C. R Toward a theory of creativity. In Creativity and Its Cultivation, ed. H. H. Anderson. New York: Harper & Row. 9. RUNKEL, P. J., and McGRATH, J. E Research on human behavior, a systematic guide to method. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 1. SEEMAN, W.; NIDICH, S.; and BANTA, T Influence of Transcendental Meditation on a measure of self-actualization. Journal of Counseling Psychology 19: TORRANCE, E. P Guiding creative talent. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 12. TORRANCE, E. P Torrance tests of creative thinking: Norms-technical manual. Princeton, New Jersey: Personnel Press. 13. WALLACE,R. K PhysiologicaleffectsofTranscendental Meditation. Science 167: WALLACE, R. K., and BENSON, H The physiology of meditation. Scientific American 226: WALLACE, R. K.; BENSON, H.; and WILSON, A. F A wakeful hypometabolic physiologic state. American Journal of Physiology 221: