Introduction: The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of short-term interventions of focused meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and expressive writing on shame in a non-clinical sample.

Method: This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pretest-posttest and follow-up design with a control group. The statistical population of this study inclu ded all female students of Shahed University in the academic year 2023-2024. In the first stage, 90 eligible individuals were selected through voluntary sampling and randomly assigned to three experimental groups (each group 18 people) and two control groups (each group 18 people). After inducing shame in the participants, the first group received one 20-minute session of focused meditation, the second group received one 20-minute session of loving-kindness meditation, and the third group received three 20-minute sessions of expressive writing. To collect data, the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-53) by Derogatis & Melisaratos (1983) and the State Shame and Guilt Scale (SSGS) by Marschall et al. (1994) were used. Data analysis was performed using one-way repeated-measure analysis of variance using SPSS version 26 software.

Results: The results showed that focused meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and expressive writing all significantly reduced the shame that was induced (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the effects of these short-term interventions on reducing shame were not significantly different from each other (p > 0.05).

Discussion and conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that all three interventions studied were effective in reducing the shame induced in a non-clinical sample of students. Therefore, the results of the present study emphasise the necessity of utilising these three types of interventions to reduce the shame. However, it should be noted that the focus of the current effort has been on brief interventions and one should not fall into the trap of illogical generalization.