Meditation lowers anxiety An experiment that was

Chapter 6, Problem 6.46

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Meditation lowers anxiety An experiment that was publicized as showing that a meditation technique lowered the anxiety level of subjects was conducted as follows: Th e experimenter interviewed the subjects and assessed their levels of anxiety. Th e subjects then learned how to meditate and did so regularly for a month. Th e experimenter reinterviewed them at the end of the month and assessed whether their anxiety levels had decreased or not. (a) Th ere was no control group in this experiment. Why is this a blunder? What lurking variables may be confounded with the eff ect of meditation? (b) Th e experimenter who diagnosed the eff ect of the treatment knew that the subjects had been meditating. Explain how this knowledge could bias the experimental conclusion. (c) Briefl y discuss a proper experimental design, with controls and blind diagnosis, to assess the eff ect of meditation on anxiety level.