Mindfulness and Compassion: An Examination of Mechanism and Scalability

摘要: Emerging evidence suggests that meditation engenders prosocial behaviors meant to benefit others. However, the robustness, underlying mechanisms, and potential scalability of such effects remain open question. The current experiment employed an ecologically valid situation exposed participants a person in visible pain. Following three-week, mobile-app based training courses mindfulness or cognitive skills (i.e., active control condition), arrived at lab individually complete purported measures ability. Upon entering public waiting area outside contained three chairs, seated themselves last remaining unoccupied chair; confederates occupied other two. As participant sat waited, third confederate using crutches large walking boot entered while displaying discomfort. Compassionate responding was assessed by whether gave up their seat allow uncomfortable sit, thereby relieving her Participants’ levels empathic accuracy also assessed. predicted, assigned condition seats more frequently than did those group. In addition, not increased practice, suggesting mindfulness-enhanced compassionate behavior does stem from associated increases ability decode emotional experiences