Contemplative Psychology and non-reductionist approaches to meditation, mindfulness, and related contemplative practices: Psychosocial, ethical, and spiritual aspects

What if contemplation could be studied without losing its depth, ethics, and meaning? Despite growing interest in contemplative practices and their personal, interpersonal, and societal effects, much research still treats them as decontextualized ‘tools’, reduced to neuro-cognitive processes, clinical protocols, or performance enhancers. This reductionism flattens phenomenological depth, obscures ethical intentionality and transformation, and detaches findings from cultural and relational frames. Against this backdrop, contemplative studies have emerged as a broad interdisciplinary arena. Within it, contemplative psychology offers distinctive potential as a non-reductionist, pluralistic field that legitimizes first-person evidence, sustains dialogue with neighbouring disciplines, and treats the inquirer as, in part, the site of inquiry. Building on this stance, this dissertation adopted a Dharma-informed heuristic in which attention/concentration, ethics, and wisdom/insight were treated as co-present in research design and interpretation, and framed contemplative practice as a developmental trajectory situated in lived contexts. The work synthesized a three-year research project by integrating quantitative modelling with lived narratives. The aims were to: (a) offer an inclusive framework for contemplative psychology as a comprehensive field for investigating contemplative phenomena and their contribution to individual and collective well-being; (b) model relations among core constructs – trait mindfulness (facet level), self-compassion and compassion towards others, emotion regulation, maladaptive cognition (rumination and thought suppression), perceived stress, psychological well-being, and humanistic spirituality; (c) compare these relations between meditators and non-meditators; and (d) bridge methods through a longitudinal qualitative case study in postgraduate education. Overall, thedissertation offers a panoramic, non-reductionist account of how contemplative development unfolds when attention, ethics, and insight are treated as co-present dimensions of change. It (1) advances a theory-informed case for non-reductionist approaches that legitimize first-person evidence alongside rigorous modelling; (2) proposes guidelines to consolidate contemplative psychology as an autonomous field with clear epistemological and methodological contours and a basis for institutional recognition; (3) provides an empirical overview of processes underpinning trait mindfulness as a universal disposition, clarifying how its links with emotion regulation, self- compassion and compassion, maladaptive cognition, psychological well-being, perceived stress, and humanistic spirituality diverge between meditators and non-meditators; and (4) outlines a pathway for contemplative education in new training contexts that values first-person inquiry for evaluation and iterative improvement.