Effects of Brief Mindfulness Meditation and Compassion Meditation on Parochial Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Toward Ethnic Out-Group Members.

Objectives: Relative to the tendency to empathize with and help sociocultural in-group members, there are often social and psychological barriers to responding prosocially toward out-group members. This experiment examined the roles of mindfulness instruction and compassion instruction in fostering prosocial behavior toward an ethnic out-group (non-U.S. Arabs) relative to an ethnic in-group (U.S. residents). The study also examined whether contemplative practices would predict less parochial empathy and whether parochial empathy would mediate the relations between mindfulness/compassion and prosocial behavior toward the out-group. Method: A national sample of n = 450 U.S. residents was recruited online via the Prolific platform using the standard sample function, which distributed the study to available participants on Prolific. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three brief, structurally equivalent audio-recorded instruction conditions: mindfulness meditation, compassion meditation, or a relaxation control, and then completed a series of tasks to assess prosociality toward in- and out-group members. Results: The compassion training was most effective in reducing parochial empathy when controlling for all covariates. The mindfulness training reduced parochial empathy when controlling for in-group empathy, and it led to greater out-group altruism and support for out-group immigration. Parochial empathy predicted out-group altruism; however, it was not a better predictor of support for Arab immigration than trait empathic concern. Training conditions did not differ on support for out-group cause. Exploratory moderation analyses found that those with higher trait empathic concern and intergroup contact quality were more likely to show compassion training and mindfulness training effects, respectively, on support for out-group immigration. Conclusions: Brief compassion training had the strongest effect on parochial empathy, but mindfulness training showed stronger effects on out-group altruism and support for out-group immigration. Predisposing social psychological characteristics may enhance intergroup prosociality among those receiving compassion or mindfulness instruction. Preregistration: This study is preregistered at https://osf.io/rnc97. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12671-023-02100-z.

Event-related correlates of compassion for social pain.

Ostracism - being intentionally excluded - is painful, and when experienced vicariously, it elicits self-reported and neural responses correlated with compassion. This study examines event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to vicarious ostracism in a computer-simulated ball-toss game, called Cyberball. Participants observed three ostensible players at other universities play two rounds of Cyberball; in the first round all players were included, but in the second round, one player was ostracized. After the game, participants reported their compassion and wrote e-mails to the ostracism victims and perpetrators, coded for prosociality and harm. Condition differences in exclusion versus inclusion throws emerged in a frontal negative-going peak between 108 and 230 ms, and in a posterior long-latency positive-going deflection between 548 and 900 ms. It is believed that the former reflects the feedback error-related negativity component (fERN) and the latter the late positive potential (LPP). The fERN was not associated with self-reported compassion or helping behavior; however, the LPP was positively associated with empathic anger and helping ostracism victims. Self-reported compassion was positively correlated with a frontal positive-going peak between 190 and 304 ms, resembling the P3a. These findings highlight the importance of studying motivational dimensions of compassion alongside its cognitive and affective dimensions.

Does Mindfulness Training Without Explicit Ethics-Based Instruction Promote Prosocial Behaviors? A Meta-Analysis.

Scholarly discourse has raised concerns about the gravitas of secular mindfulness trainings in promoting prosocial outgrowths, as these trainings lack ethics-based concepts found in contemplative traditions. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to test whether mindfulness trainings absent explicit ethics-based instructions promote prosocial action. There was a range of small to medium standardized mean difference effect sizes of mindfulness training on overt acts of prosociality when compared with active and inactive controls, k = 29, N = 3,100, g = .426, 95% confidence interval (CI)(g) = [.304, .549]. Reliable effect size estimates were found for single-session interventions that measured prosocial behavior immediately after training. Mindfulness training also reliably promotes compassionate (but not instrumental or generous) helping and reliably reduces prejudice and retaliation. Publication bias analyses indicated that the reliability of these findings was not wholly dependent on selective reporting. Implications for the science of secular mindfulness training on prosocial action are discussed.

Mindfulness increases prosocial responses toward ostracized strangers through empathic concern.

Four studies tested the proposition that mindfulness and its training fostered prosociality toward ostracized strangers. In discovery Study 1, dispositional mindfulness predicted greater empathic concern for, and more helping behavior toward, an ostracized stranger. Using an experimental design, Study 2 revealed that very briefly instructed mindfulness, relative to active control instructions, also promoted prosocial responsiveness to an ostracized stranger. Study 3 ruled out alternative explanations for this effect of mindfulness, showing that it did not promote empathic anger or perpetrator punishment, nor that the control training reduced prosocial responsiveness toward an ostracized stranger rather than mindfulness increasing it. Study 4 further ruled out the alternative explanation of relaxation in the experimental effects of mindfulness. In all studies, empathic concern mediated the relation between mindfulness and one or both of the helping behavior outcomes. Meta-analyses of the four studies revealed stable, medium sized effects of mindfulness instruction on prosocial emotions and prosocial behavior. Together these findings inform about circumstances in which mindfulness may increase prosocial responsiveness, and deepen our understanding of the motivational bases of prosociality. (PsycINFO Database Record

Manipulating attention via mindfulness induction improves P300-based brain-computer interface performance.

In this study, we examined the effects of a short mindfulness meditation induction (MMI) on the performance of a P300-based brain-computer interface (BCI) task. We expected that MMI would harness present-moment attentional resources, resulting in two positive consequences for P300-based BCI use. Specifically, we believed that MMI would facilitate increases in task accuracy and promote the production of robust P300 amplitudes. Sixteen-channel electroencephalographic data were recorded from 18 subjects using a row/column speller task paradigm. Nine subjects participated in a 6 min MMI and an additional nine subjects served as a control group. Subjects were presented with a 6 × 6 matrix of alphanumeric characters on a computer monitor. Stimuli were flashed at a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 125 ms. Calibration data were collected on 21 items without providing feedback. These data were used to derive a stepwise linear discriminate analysis classifier that was applied to an additional 14 items to evaluate accuracy. Offline performance analyses revealed that MMI subjects were significantly more accurate than control subjects. Likewise, MMI subjects produced significantly larger P300 amplitudes than control subjects at Cz and PO7. The discussion focuses on the potential attentional benefits of MMI for P300-based BCI performance.