Just in case anyone is interested, here's a non-paywalled version of this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3176828/
Some people voted this up, others down- currently it's at -1. Somehow, though, I ended up with 22 less karma points then before I posted it and it was my first post in months. Initially I mistakenly posted it to "General" instead of "Discussion". I moved it as soon as it was pointed out to me, at which point it had -1. I'm not upset, I have a thick skin, but I'm curious about how and why I lost 20 other karma points. Perhaps many people had already downloaded it when it was posted to "general" and voted it down? Either that, or one or more people went through my very old comments and posts down voting.
Sorry about the link being to a pay site, I still thought it was an interesting finding. I posted it without a discussion because I thought the abstract spoke for itself. Also, I've been told that I shouldn't write a summary of what I link to.
You lost 10 points from the downvote in Main. Moving, deleting, or doing anything to a post doesn't change karma gained or lost from it, and votes on posts are worth 10 points in Main.
The other 10 might be another downvote in Main before you moved, though that's a narrow time window.
From the abstract, there seems to be no indication that the authors believed there was any meaningful distinction between different meditation techniques.
That's not totally surprising if true; reminds me of the finding that (with a few exceptions) a psychotherapist's theoretical training doesn't have much effect on patient outcomes.
I would find it surprising if different meditations techniques did not differ significantly from one another, but did differ significantly from sitting still with your eyes closed. Similarly, if training doesn't significantly affect psychotherapeutic efficacy, then I would expect psychotherapy not to differ significantly from talking things through with a friend.
Rather, I expect psychotherapy not to differ from talking with a sympathetic person whose social approval you don't need. People self-censor when talking to friends, even good friends.
a sympathetic person whose social approval you don't need
Interesting. That's a specific benefit of psychotherapists that hadn't occurred to me.
I downvoted because it's (1) a link with no discussion, the kind of presentation I wish to discourage, and (2) link to an article behind a paywall.
That's true, but downvoting without comment is especially harmful to new contributors, who might conclude goodness knows what from it. ("Does Less Wrong hate me? Do they regard all meditation as woo? What's going on?")
EDIT: Oh, apparently this happened while the article was in Main, and in that case I'd have approved of the downvotes even so. I only came across it in Discussion, though.
Careless downvoting (and upvoting) is something one can expect from new members. Veterans know that voting is serious thing that is done after deep deliberation and soul searching, but for a newbie, it is just click.
Speaking from my own experience (not that I would dare to call myself veteran)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811911006008