Rhetorical Analysis on meditation and its effects on mood/emotion

Mark Thacina
The City College of New York

ENGL 21007 Professor Elisabeth Von Uhl

March 21, 2022

“Rhetorical Analysis on meditation and its effects on mood/emotion”

Meditation has been a practice that has been recognized recently in western culture. There is ample evidence that meditation can regulate emotions. The goal of meditation isn’t to control your thoughts, it’s to stop letting them control you. Lusnigs, Radach, Mueller, and Hoffman’s academic journal, “Zen meditation neutralizes emotional evaluation, but not implicit affective processing of words” covers the effects of meditation and how it can regulate emotions. It also describes how meditation can affect word processing and word recognition. Therefore, the study aims to examine whether meditation affects emotion, as well as effects in visual word recognition. In a similar sense, Shibas, Nishimoto, Sugimoto, and Ishikawa’s academic journal, “The Association between Meditation Practice and Job Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study” expresses the effects of meditation on cognitive and non-cognitive functions and examines the association between meditation practice and job performance. It implies to the audience that meditation can affect how you perform; the topic specifies job performance which many people struggle with from time to time. Similarly, Sainis’, Haseeb, Zada, and Ngs article, “The effects of meditation on individuals facing loneliness: a scoping review” discusses meditation and its benefits; including how it has a direct correlation to alleviating loneliness. The author helps the audience relate to this topic when mentioning how loneliness has had a great effect on people during COVID-19. Even though the authors “Lusnigs et al., Shibas et al., Sainis et al.” have a different sense of tone, structure, and specific evidence that covers specific studies on how meditation can have an impact emotionally and physically, their use of language and details brought to the audience allows for the people to gain knowledge on the topic and consider meditation after reading the articles.

The language efficiency displayed by the speaker allows for a sense of purpose while reading the article which gains the attention of the audience. In Lusnig. et al article, they introduce the topic by informing the audience of the present study of Zen meditators and their changes in emotion (high and low arousal) which showed no differences in emotion. For example, (Lusnig. et. al 2020) states, “We found no differential emotion effects of Zen meditation during the lexical decision, but we replicated the slow-down of low-arousal negative words during lexical decision in both groups. Interestingly, Zen meditation elicited global facilitation of all response times, which we discuss in terms of increased attentional resources after meditation.” In this abstract, we can see they are building from a past experiment to gain information on a new experiment to break down the topic of whether word processing is affected through meditation. This process of building on a topic from a present experiment allows for the audience to get familiar with what is going on and helps stay engaged in what the speaker is trying to convey. For instance, Lusnig states, “While it is well known that behavioral and neural responses to emotional images can be attenuated by meditation [3-5], it is less clear whether meditation also affects higher-level emotional representations such as words. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine whether the meditation practice of adept meditators has an impact on emotional valence ratings of word stimuli, as well as on emotional valence effects in visual word recognition [6,7].”. In this description Lusnig. et. al allows for the audience to interpret an inference on whether mediation affects word recognition or not: the audience understands the study at hand and is well informed since the beginning of the paper.

Similarly, (Shiba. et. al 2015) introduce their paper by referencing previous studies which have shown that meditation practice has a positive impact on cognitive and non-cognitive functions, which are related to job performance. The objective of this reading is to figure out whether there is a direct correlation between meditation practice and job performance. Shiba. et. al portrays this clearly throughout the paper and engages with the audience in a thorough introduction. Shiba. et. al separates the experiment into two studies. Study 1 was a cross-sectional study of adults in Japan that estimated the prevalence of meditation practice and the background characteristics of those that practice. Study 2 was a cross-sectional study of Japanese business persons that examined the associations between the frequency of meditation practice and scores on the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9), the World Health Organization Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (HPQ), and a job satisfaction scale. This allows for concise study development and allows the audience to reflect on the problem to find a solution; this breaks down the study for the audience causing less confusion for the readers.

On the other hand, Saini. et. al take a different approach in their paper by reflecting on meditation and its effects on emotion since the recent outbreak of COVID-19. Saini. et al begin with getting the audience familiar with the practice of meditation by saying, “Meditation is defined as a mind and body practice focused on interactions between the brain, mind, body, and behavior…mindfulness meditation training can be a successful tool to implement to reduce feelings of isolation due to the downregulation of the expression of inflammation-related genes, which are parallel to reductions in loneliness [9]. The word choice is formal which is similar to that of Lusnig and Shiba. Sainis’ paper is more of a formal interpretation that falls into the category of logos. For instance, Saini says, “ While there is no universal definition for the term ‘loneliness’, it is commonly defined as a state of solitude or being alone [10]. Loneliness can also be defined as the perception of being alone, which constitutes having a negative state of mind associated with deficient social relations rather than being alone, due to the various forms of loneliness that exist: (1) chronic loneliness and (2) reactive loneliness [10, 11]. Currently, loneliness is likely to be exacerbated as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. (Saini. et. al 2021). Through this language use, the audience is targeted to be those who have been affected by the outbreak and who struggle with the idea of loneliness.

In comparison to rhetorical strategies, all three of these lab reports share a common theme in regards to the purpose of each paper and how it sends a message to the audience that meditation can be beneficial to the mind and body. Sainis. et .al paper, concludes that from 13 eligible articles, they identified three major themes including 1) positive results across all studies, 2) relatively small randomized control trials conducted over the last decade, and 3) lack of diverse demographic information. (Saini. et. al 2021). Also saying, “While a small number of studies exist at this intersection, given that all included studies reported positive findings, the effects of meditation in alleviating loneliness are promising.”. Lusing. et. al paper, concludes that even though meditation did not influence the emotional effects during the lexical decision, participants demonstrated globally faster word recognition after meditation. We suggest that greater attentional resources after the meditation can best explain this result. Shiba. et. al article, despite the limitations on the present study the findings presented in this study indicate that meditation practice may have positive effects on enhancing multiple dimensions of job performance, including work engagement, subjective job performance, and job satisfaction; these associations are independent of an individual’s demographic characteristics and behavioral risk factors. All three reports formally introduce their information and provide a sense of ethos and logos for interpretation. This provides a valid outline for the audience and allows for them to interpret the theme of meditation however they like through a series of studies displaying how mediation can be beneficial.

In contrast, the articles all have different methods in which they test their experiments. For instance, in Shiba. et. al report, they split the experiment up into two studies: Study 1 (Demographic characteristics of the sample by meditation practice) and Study 2 (Comparison of the background characteristics for the meditation group and non-meditation group). This study design creates a vast opportunity for measurements in the experiment and would help the audience appreciate its validity. Similarly, Lusnig. et. al method, compares the present study to her current study in which she uses participants to do multiple tests. Sainis’ group writing contrasts directly with Lusnigs and Shibas’s group paper. Sainis. et. al approach is identifying the research question and finding relevant studies to report results. They all share a similar theme but Sainis. et. al article is written in a context that contrasts from the other two. In particular, (Saini. et. al 2021) states, “A scoping review investigating the effects of meditation on loneliness was conducted based on Arksey and O’Malley’s [21] five-stage scoping review framework. The five steps are as follows: (1) identifying the research question, (2) identifying relevant studies, (3) selecting the studies, (4) charting the data, and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results.”. Even though the approach is different between these reports, they all provide a conductive and efficient experiment as to why meditation can be beneficial.

Although there are different rhetorical strategies that we can pinpoint, the main objective of these writings is to present a purpose and portray that purpose clearly so that the audience can interpret the information. Lusnig. et. al offers a present and more recent study that offers sufficient outlooks on the topic and a solid context as to why meditation can affect word processing in a good way. Similarly, Shiba. et. al compares an experiment between two study groups which allows for a larger demographic to compare for mediators and non-meditators. This means that the results provide a valid context as to why meditation can help in job performance. Each writer provides a sense of trust in their topics with all the information they provide. The structure of creating formal writing allows the audience to perceive the writing as clear and reliable which makes the writing feel overall less personal and more professional. Overall, the audience is engaged and the information is provided with great background and information on the experiments leaving it up to interpretation whether you want to incorporate meditation or not.

References
. Lusnig, L., Radach, R., Mueller, C. J., & Hofmann, M. J. (2020). Zen meditation neutralizes

emotional evaluation, but not implicit affective processing of words. PLoS ONE, 15(2), e0229310.https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A614288110/SCIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-SCI C&xid=e1a730c4
. Saini, G. K., Haseeb, S. B., Taghi-Zada, Z., & Ng, J. Y. (2021). The effects of meditation on individuals facing loneliness: a scoping review. BMC Psychology, 9(1), NA. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A662674863/SCIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=18 8aed9e

. Shiba, K., Nishimoto, M., Sugimoto, M., & Ishikawa, Y. (2015). The Association between Meditation Practice and Job Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study. PLoS ONE, 10(5). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A432644590/SCIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=4ef 7383b