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The Concept of Tri-Guna: a Working Model

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The Concept of Tri-Guna: a Working Model Promoting Health by Sattva-Guna Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat.) vorgelegt der Fakultät für Human- und Sozialwissenschaften der Technischen Universität Chemnitz von: Maika Puta, geboren am 08.12.1986 in Chemnitz am: 30.10.2015 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Peter Sedlmeier, Technische Universität Chemnitz Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Dr. Harald Walach, Europa Universität Viadrina Online unter: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:ch1-qucosa-224078 Acknowledgements iii Acknowledgements A number of people supported me over last few years in my work on this thesis and I would like to thank them wholeheartedly. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor Peter Sedlmeier for his intelligent, committed, kind and dependable guidance. For sure, supervising an external PhD student has its challenges and I thank him for his open-mindedness in helping me find a way to realize my ambition. I really enjoyed working with him. Furthermore, I am grateful to the Foundation of the German Economy for investing in this project and me, and financing and supporting this research with a scholarship. It would have been immensely harder without this help. I thank the staff of the University of Chemnitz for their valuable help: Juliane Eberth, Thomas Schäfer, Marcus Schwarz, Johannes Titz and Damaris Dose. Many persons helped me with getting information I needed – too many to name them all. Thank you Swaroop Sharma and Shilpa Datar for sending me papers published in India that I could not get access to via the internet or German libraries. Thank you V. George Mathew, Marutham Panneer, Arvind K. Sinha, Parvinder Gupta, Venkat R. Krishnan and Jason A. Hopkins for sending me your work. Thank you Kimberly Vannest for your help with the Tau online calculator and Jürgen Wilbert for helping with the scan R-packet. Also, I would like to thank the over 40 yoga centers, mainly in Berlin, who helped me find participants for my studies. Thank you Chloe Hünefeld from the German Akademy for Traditional Yoga in Berlin for letting me use your meeting room four afternoons a week for the three months of the intervention study. Furthermore, a big thank you goes to all the hundreds of people who made this research possible by participating in the studies. Of course, my friends and family have contributed greatly by their interest, appreciation, support and sincere encouragement of my work – thank you to all of you! In particular, I would like to thank Sacinanadana Swami, Biljana, Beisa, Sabina, Nadine, Salome, Gerard, my parents Carola and Tilo, Rety, Julia, Mandy, Peter, Stefanie, Kiyokazu, Claudia, Michael and last, but definitely not least my better half Thomas. Summary v Summary This thesis examines a psychological model of health and well-being from an ancient Indian philosophical thought system called the tri-guna model. After an introduction in the first chapter, the second chapter establishes the theoretical basis of the model. The third chapter describes the development and psychometric properties of the Tri-Guna Scales which measure the components of the tri-guna model. The fourth chapter presents an intervention study that is focused on an intervention that was conceptualized on the basis of the tri-guna model and aimed at increasing well-being, followed by the last chapter that draws conclusions. As the second chapter illustrates, the tri-guna model proposes that the psyche is influenced by three energies that function in dependence on one another and each strive for dominance, pushing the other two aside when they gain strength. These three energies are called sattva, rajas and tamas. In short, when sattva is dominant in a person, the person has strong well-being, is calm, happy, motivated and persevering. Dominant rajas leads to stress, over-activity and restlessness. When tamas becomes dominant, it makes a person pessimistic, depressed and unmotivated. The implication of the tri-guna model is that sattva should be the dominant guna in order for a person to experience high well-being. Sattva can be strengthened by a number of interventions such as meditation, increasing spiritual awareness, self- regulation and developing virtues. Studies examining the tri-guna model have demonstrated that many of the theorized relations are supported by empirical data. The quality of the inventories used to measure the gunas in the past does not meet current methodological standards, for which reason new tri-guna scales were developed in two studies. The inventory items were derived from the working model discussed in the second chapter of the thesis. Originally, the goal was to develop one large tri-guna scale that is clearly composed of three factors, of which each corresponds to one of the gunas. However, because of the wide range of behavioral aspects that are determined by the gunas, the first exploratory factor analysis found factors that corresponded not only to one of the gunas, but also to one of the many behavioral facets inherent in the one comprehensive scale (e.g. cognition, motivation, social behavior etc.). Therefore, the items were grouped into nine separate scales that each measure the gunas in one single behavioral category. The reliability of the majority of the 27 scales corresponds to reliability values of established personality inventories: Cronbach’s α of 24 subscales is above .7. The internal consistencies of the other three subscales don’t meet this standard, but their values are still above .6. Measures determining the validity of the inventory are very good. The exploratory factor analysis of the second study shows that all scales consist of three factors, each of which can be related to one vi Summary of the gunas. The correlations of the subscales amongst each other are consistent with the hypotheses and previous research, the sattva scales correlate negatively with the rajas and tamas scales, and the rajas and tamas scales have positive correlations. Furthermore, the correlations of the scales to relevant external criteria provide further evidence for the validity of the scales. As expected, the sattva scales correlate positively with measures of well-being and negatively with measures of stress, whereas the rajas and tamas scales correlate positively with measures of stress and negatively with measures of well-being. The tri-guna model not only aims at describing and explaining behavior, but also at changing it, so that well-being can increase. The fourth chapter of this thesis describes an intervention study that tested a training aimed at increasing sattva and decreasing rajas and tamas, in a multiple baseline study. 24 participants took part in an eight-week training which included a variety of the interventions detailed in the second chapter: meditation, cognitive restructuring, managing energy and will-power, and mindful decision-making and social behavior. The study results show that the training was effective: sattva increased and rajas and tamas decreased with medium to large effects. Other significant changes include an increase in psychological and physical well-being and self-regulation. All in all, this thesis demonstrates the potential of the contribution of the guna model to explaining and increasing well-being. This research provides a thorough description of the model and summary of empirical evidence in connection to the gunas. Furthermore, this work has made it possible to measure the gunas with a questionnaire of high academic standards. This will support future research on the gunas and other fields investigating interventions with an Indian background like meditation or yoga. Finally, this thesis shows how the guna model can be applied practically in a psychological training in order to improve the well-being of its participants. Zusammenfassung vii Zusammenfassung Diese Dissertation untersucht ein psychologisches Modell für Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden aus der indischen Philosophie, genannt das Tri-Guna Modell. Nach einer Einleitung im ersten Kapitel, beschreibt das zweite Kapitel die theoretischen Grundlagen des Modells. Das dritte Kapitel beschreibt die Entwicklung und psychometrischen Eigenschaften der Tri-Guna Skalen, welche die Komponenten des Tri-Guna Modells messen. Im vierten Kapitel wird eine Interventionsstudie dargestellt, die ein Training untersucht, das auf der Grundlage des Tri- Guna Modells entworfen wurde und darauf abzielt Wohlbefinden zu stärken. Im Anschluss folgt das letzte Kapitel, in welchem Schlussfolgerungen und ein Ausblick dargestellt werden. Wie das zweite Kapitel darstellt, wird die Psyche laut dem Tri-Guna Modell von drei Energien beeinflusst, die in Abhängigkeit voneinander arbeiten. Jede strebt nach Stärke und verringert die Auswirkung der anderen beiden, wenn sie an Kraft zunimmt. Diese drei Energien heißen Sattva, Rajas und Tamas. Kurz gefasst erfährt eine Person Wohlbefinden, Ruhe, Glück, Motivation und Ausdauer, wenn Sattva am stärksten ist. Vorherrschendes Rajas führt zu Stress, übermäßiger Aktivität und Ruhelosigkeit. Wenn Tamas vorherrscht, ist die Person pessimistisch, depressiv und unmotiviert. Insgesamt erfährt eine Person das höchste Ausmaß an Wohlbefinden, wenn Sattva die stärkste Guna ist. Laut Tri-Guna Modell kann Sattva durch verschiedene Maßnahmen gestärkt werden, wie zum Beispiel Meditation, spirituelle Bewusstheit, Selbstregulation und das Umsetzen von Tugenden. Studien, welche das Tri-Guna Modell untersucht haben, konnten zeigen, dass viele der in dem Modell beschriebenen Beziehungen von empirischen Daten belegt
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