Top

Mindfulness

Gepubliceerd in:

12-05-2021 | ORIGINAL PAPER

The Effect of Mindfulness and Compassion Meditation on State Empathy and Emotion

Auteurs: Jesse Martin-Allan, Peter Leeson, William Lovegrove

Gepubliceerd in: Mindfulness | Uitgave 7/2021

Abstract

Objectives

Research suggests meditation may increase empathy and emotional engagement. Whilst this may be beneficial in professions where empathy results in greater effectiveness (e.g. psychotherapy), emotional engagement may also produce emotional burnout. This study aims to determine whether mindfulness and/or compassion meditation can prime empathy prior to connecting with another’s emotions, and facilitate emotional stability afterwards.

Methods

University students (N = 156) listened to recordings of compassion meditation, mindfulness meditation or a control, then watched videos depicting sadness, happiness or anxiety, then listened to compassion, mindfulness or control recordings again. This produced five groups: Compassion-compassion (i.e. compassion meditation before and after videos), mindfulness-mindfulness, mindfulness-compassion, compassion-mindfulness and a control. State emotions and empathy were assessed throughout.

Results

Compassion and mindfulness meditation resulted in greater empathy than the control (p = .03). Prior to watching videos, mindfulness meditation produced greater sadness and anxiety, and compassion meditation produced greater sadness and happiness (p = .001). After watching videos, happiness was greater in the mindfulness-mindfulness and compassion-compassion condition (p = .03).

Conclusions

Both types of meditation resulted in greater self-reported distressing emotions prior to videos (and happiness in compassion condition), and empathy during presentation compared to the control. Afterwards, there was an increase in positive emotions in the compassion-compassion and mindfulness-mindfulness conditions. This indicates that meditation may allow for individuals to process emotional content in a way that is conducive to wellbeing. Whilst compassion meditation is often combined with mindfulness, these results suggest using a consistent approach of either mindfulness or compassion is most beneficial to wellbeing.

vorige artikel Mindful Construal Reflections: Reducing Unhealthier Eating Choices

volgende artikel Reducing Stigma Through Interconnectedness and Compassion: a Buddhism-Based Approach to Reduce Stigma Toward People with Mental Illness

Alleen toegankelijk voor geautoriseerde gebruikers

Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45.

Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Lykins, E., Button, D., Krietemeyer, J., Sauer, S., ... & Williams, J. M. G. (2008). Construct validity of the five facet mindfulness questionnaire in meditating and nonmeditating samples. Assessment, 15(3), 329–342.

Baer, R. A., Lykins, E. L., & Peters, J. R. (2012). Mindfulness and self-compassion as predictors of psychological wellbeing in long-term meditators and matched nonmeditators. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7(3), 230–238.

Barbosa, P., Raymond, G., Zlotnick, C., Wilk, J., Toomey, R., III., & Mitchell, J., III. (2013). Mindfulness-based stress reduction training is associated with greater empathy and reduced anxiety for graduate healthcare students. Education for Health, 26(1), 9–20.

Barnhofer, T., Crane, C., Hargus, E., Amarasinghe, M., Winder, R., & Williams, J. M. G. (2009). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as a treatment for chronic depression: A preliminary study. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47(5), 366–373.

Bartels-Velthuis, A. A., Van Der Ploeg, K., Schroevers, M. J., & Van Den Brink, H. (2015). The effects of a mindfulness based compassionate living training on anxiety and depression in a heterogeneous sample of psychiatric outpatients: a pilot study. European Psychiatry, 30(1), 1–1.

Bartels-Velthuis, A. A., Schroevers, M. J., van der Ploeg, K., Koster, F., Fleer, J., & van den Brink, E. (2016). A mindfulness-based compassionate living training in a heterogeneous sample of psychiatric outpatients: a feasibility study. Mindfulness, 7(4), 809–818.

Beaumont, E., Rayner, G., Durkin, M., & Bowling, G. (2017). The effects of compassionate mind training on student psychotherapists. Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, 12(5), 300–312.

Beddoe, A. E., & Murphy, S. O. (2004). Does mindfulness decrease stress and foster empathy among nursing students? Journal of Nursing Education, 43(7), 305–312.

Boellinghaus, I., Jones, F. W., & Hutton, J. (2013). Cultivating self-care and compassion in psychological therapists in training: The experience of practicing loving-kindness meditation. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 7(4), 267–285.

Brito-Pons, G., Campos, D., & Cebolla, A. (2018). Implicit or explicit compassion? Effects of compassion cultivation training and comparison with mindfulness-based stress reduction. Mindfulness, 9, 1494–1508.

Buchanan, K. E., & Bardi, A. (2010). Acts of kindness and acts of novelty affect life satisfaction. The Journal of Social Psychology, 150(3), 235–237.

Contri, D. (2011). Empathy and barriers to altruism. Peace and Conflict Review, 6(1), 1–13.

Desbordes, G., Negi, L. T., Pace, T. W. W., Wallace, B. A., Raison, C. L., & Schwartz, E. L. (2012). Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 292. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00292.

Eberth, J., & Sedlmeier, P. (2012). The effects of mindfulness meditation: A meta-analysis. Mindfulness, 3(3), 174–189.

Ellis, A. R., Burchett, W. W., Harrar, S. W., & Bathke, A. C. (2017). Nonparametric inference for multivariate data: The R package npmv. Journal of Statistical Software, 76(1), 1–18.

Evans, S., Ferrando, S., Findler, M., Stowell, C., Smart, C., & Haglin, D. (2008). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for generalized anxiety disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22(4), 716–721.

Gilbert, P. (2009). The compassionate mind. Robinson.

Gleichgerrcht, E., & Decety, J. (2013). Empathy in clinical practice: How individual dispositions, gender, and experience moderate empathic concern, burnout, and emotional distress in physicians. PLoS ONE, 8(4), e61526. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061526.

Goldin, P. R., & Gross, J. J. (2010). Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder. Emotion, 10(1), 83–91.

Goodman, L. A., Pugach, M., Skolnik, A., & Smith, L. (2013). Poverty and mental health practice: Within and beyond the 50-minute hour. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(2), 182–190.

Goyal, M., Singh, S., Sibinga, E. M., Gould, N. F., Rowland-Seymour, A., Sharma, R., Berger, Z., Sleicher, D., Maron, D. D., & Shihab, H. M. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(3), 357–368.

Grossman, P., & Van Dam, N. T. (2011). Mindfulness, by any other name…: Trials and tribulations of sati in western psychology and science. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 219–239.

Harmon-Jones, C., Bastian, B., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2016). The discrete emotions questionnaire: A new tool for measuring state self-reported emotions. PloS One, 11(8), e0159915.

Hölzel, B., & Ott, U. (2006). Relationships between meditation depth, absorption, meditation practice, and mindfulness: A latent variable approach. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 38(2), 179–200.

Howells, A., Ivtzan, I., & Eiroa-Orosa, F. J. (2016). Putting the ‘app’in happiness: A randomised controlled trial of a smartphone-based mindfulness intervention to enhance wellbeing. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(1), 163–185.

Hwang, J. Y., Plante, T., & Lackey, K. (2008). The development of the Santa Clara brief compassion scale: An abbreviation of Sprecher and Fehr’s compassionate love scale. Pastoral Psychology, 56(4), 421–428.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2011). Some reflections on the origins of MBSR, skillful means, and the trouble with maps. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 281–306.

Kemper, K. J., & Khirallah, M. (2015). Acute effects of online mind–body skills training on resilience, mindfulness, and empathy. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 20(4), 247–253.

Kiken, L. G., Garland, E. L., Bluth, K., Palsson, O. S., & Gaylord, S. A. (2015). From a state to a trait: Trajectories of state mindfulness in meditation during intervention predict changes in trait mindfulness. Personality and Individual Differences, 81, 41–46.

Klimecki, O., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2013a). Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(6), 873–879.

Klimecki, O., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2013). Empathy versus compassion: Lessons from 1st and 3rd person methods. In T. Singer & M. Bolz (Eds.), Compassion: Bridging practice and science (pp. 272–287). Max Planck Society.

Laska, K. M., Gurman, A. S., & Wampold, B. E. (2014). Expanding the lens of evidence-based practice in psychotherapy: A common factors perspective. Psychotherapy, 51(4), 467–481.CrossRef

Lau, M. A., Bishop, S. R., Segal, Z. V., Buis, T., Anderson, N. D., Carlson, L., Shapiro, S., Carmody, J., Abbey, S., & Devins, G. (2006). The Toronto mindfulness scale: Development and validation. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(12), 1445–1467.

Layous, K., Nelson, S. K., Oberle, E., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2012). Kindness counts: Prompting prosocial behavior in preadolescents boosts peer acceptance and well-being. PLoS ONE, 7(12), e51380.CrossRef

Leaviss, J., & Uttley, L. (2015). Psychotherapeutic benefits of compassion-focused therapy: An early systematic review. Psychological Medicine, 45(5), 927–945.

Leppma, M., & Young, M. E. (2016). Loving-kindness meditation and empathy: A wellness group intervention for counseling students. Journal of Counseling & Development, 94(3), 297–305.CrossRef

Luberto, C. M., Shinday, N., Song, R., Philpotts, L. L., Park, E. R., Fricchione, G. L., & Yeh, G. Y. (2018). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of meditation on empathy, compassion, and prosocial behaviors. Mindfulness, 9(3), 708–724.

Mascaro, J. S., Rilling, J. K., Tenzin Negi, L., & Raison, C. L. (2013). Compassion meditation enhances empathic accuracy and related neural activity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(1), 48–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nss095.CrossRefPubMed

McIntyre-Mills, J. (2010). Wellbeing, mindfulness and the global commons. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17(7–8), 47–72.

Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self-compassion program. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(1), 28–44.CrossRef

Ortner, C. N., Kilner, S. J., & Zelazo, P. D. (2007). Mindfulness meditation and reduced emotional interference on a cognitive task. Motivation and Emotion, 31(4), 271–283.CrossRef

Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879–903.CrossRef

Qu, H.-Y., & Wang, C.-M. (2015). Study on the relationships between nurses’ job burnout and subjective well-being. Chinese Nursing Research, 2(2), 61–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnre.2015.09.003.CrossRef

Raab, K. (2014). Mindfulness, self-compassion, and empathy among health care professionals: A review of the literature. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 20(3), 95–108.CrossRef

Raffone, A., Marzetti, L., Del Gratta, C., Perrucci, M. G., Romani, G. L., & Pizzella, V. (2019). Toward a brain theory of meditation. In S. Waxman (Ed.), Progress in brain research. (Vol. 244, pp. 207–232). Elsevier.

Schuling, R., Huijbers, M. J., van Ravesteijn, H., Donders, R., Kuyken, W., & Speckens, A. E. (2016). A parallel-group, randomized controlled trial into the effectiveness of mindfulness-based compassionate living (MBCL) compared to treatment-as-usual in recurrent depression: trial design and protocol. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 50, 77–83.

Schuling, R., Huijbers, M. J., van Ravesteijn, H., Donders, R., Cillessen, L., Kuyken, W., & Speckens, A. E. (2020). Recovery from recurrent depression: Randomized controlled trial of the efficacy of mindfulness-based compassionate living compared with treatment-as-usual on depressive symptoms and its consolidation at longer term follow-up. Journal of Affective Disorders, 273, 265–273.

Sedlmeier, P., Eberth, J., Schwarz, M., Zimmermann, D., Haarig, F., Jaeger, S., & Kunze, S. (2012). The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(6), 1139–1171.CrossRef

Segal, Z. V., & Teasdale, J. (2018). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression. Guilford Publications.

Shapiro, S. L., Schwartz, G. E., & Bonner, G. (1998). Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on medical and premedical students. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 21(6), 581–599.CrossRef

Shen, L. (2010). On a scale of state empathy during message processing. Western Journal of Communication, 74(5), 504–524.CrossRef

Stevens, J. P. (2012). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences. Routledge.

Strauss, C., Lever Taylor, B., Gu, J., Kuyken, W., Baer, R., Jones, F., & Cavanagh, K. (2016). What is compassion and how can we measure it? A review of definitions and measures. Clinical Psychology Review, 47, 15–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2016.05.004.CrossRefPubMed

Taylor, V. A., Grant, J., Daneault, V., Scavone, G., Breton, E., Roffe-Vidal, S., Courtemanche, J., Lavarenne, A. S., & Beauregard, M. (2011). Impact of mindfulness on the neural responses to emotional pictures in experienced and beginner meditators. NeuroImage, 57(4), 1524–1533.

Williams, J. M. G., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2011). Mindfulness: Diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(01), 1–18.CrossRef

Wilson, A. C., Mackintosh, K., Power, K., & Chan, S. W. (2019). Effectiveness of self-compassion related therapies: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Mindfulness, 10(6), 979–995.

Titel: The Effect of Mindfulness and Compassion Meditation on State Empathy and Emotion
Auteurs: Jesse Martin-Allan
Peter Leeson
William Lovegrove
Publicatiedatum: 12-05-2021
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Mindfulness / Uitgave 7/2021
Print ISSN: 1868-8527
Elektronisch ISSN: 1868-8535
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-021-01639-z

Bohn Stafleu van Loghum

Deel dit onderdeel of sectie (kopieer de link)

Abstract

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Log in om toegang te krijgen

Andere artikelen Uitgave 7/2021

Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Police Officers

Group and Common Factors in Mindfulness-Based Programmes: a Selective Review and Implications for Teachers

Effect of Mindfulness Training on Inhibitory Control in Young Offenders

The Short- and Long-term Causal Relationships Between Self-compassion, Trait Mindfulness, Caregiver Stress, and Depressive Symptoms in Family Caregivers of Patients with Lung Cancer

Finding the Spiritual in the Secular: A Meta-analysis of Changes in Spirituality Following Secular Mindfulness-Based Programs

Rajyoga Meditation Experience Induces Enhanced Positive Thoughts and Alters Gray Matter Volume of Brain Regions: A Cross-sectional Study