A Longitudinal Investigation of Empathic Behavior and Neural Activity and Their Modulation by Compassion Meditation Public
Mascaro, Jennifer Streiffer (2011)
Abstract
While meditation is increasingly incorporated into clinical
treatments for a variety of
ailments and is offered to the public with claims of increasing
overall health and well-
being, there are sizeable gaps in our understanding of the outcomes
related to its practice.
First, very little is known about how meditation affects social
cognition and related neural
processes. Second, much of the current research on meditation is
fraught with flawed
experimental designs and incomplete assessments of practitioners,
such that many have
called into question any conclusions regarding the effects
of meditation practices. Third,
research on meditation has primarily been conducted under the
assumption that all
practitioners meditate for a common reason and with common goals,
and that meditation
acts the same way in all practitioners. This dissertation was
designed to address the
aforementioned gaps. More specifically, we aimed to assess (1)
the social cognitive,
neurobiological and behavioral changes related to compassion
meditation, (2) the
mechanisms by which neurobiological change is translated into
outcomes in
practitioners, and (3) the nuanced ways in which
particular individuals adopt the
meditation practice and attain effects. We used a randomized,
controlled and
longitudinal investigation of a secularized compassion meditation
program adapted from
the 11th century Tibetan Buddhist lojong tradition, and
employed a battery of social
cognitive, neurobiological, personality and behavioral assessments
in order to explore the
ways in which the practice of compassion meditation led to
outcomes. Despite the fact
that no study participants reported goals related to enhancing
empathy, meditation
enhanced empathic accuracy as well as the brain activity related to
it, and it was
meditation-related enhancement of neural activity in putative
mirror neuron regions that
partially accounted for enhanced empathic accuracy. However, other
aspects of empathy
remained unchanged, including self-reported levels of empathy,
compassionate behavior,
and the neural activity related to viewing another in pain. In
addition, baseline brain
activity predicted engagement with the practice, and baseline
levels of anxiety and
spiritual meaning moderated the effects of meditation. These
findings highlight the
importance of more holistic and rigorous meditation research, and
suggest that
compassion meditation may represent a unique behavioral
intervention for enhancing
empathy.
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Chapter
1. Introduction
Goals of the Research Project………………………………………..3
What is empathy?.................................................................................3
Overview of study……………………………………………………6
What follows?......................................................................................12
Specific Aims of the Research Project……………………………….13
2. Empathic accuracy: Reading the Mind in the Eyes
Introduction…………………………………………………………17
Background…..………………………………….………………17
Goals of the study………………………………………………..23
Hypotheses………………………………………………………25
Methods……………………………………...………………………26
Results………………………………………………………………..33
Discussion……………………………………………………………36
Figures and Tables………..……………………………………….…44
3. Empathy for pain
Introduction………………………………………………………..59
Background…………………………………………………….60
Novel aspects of this study……………………………….…….63
Goals of the study……………………………….……………...66
Hypotheses……………………………………………………..67
Methods.……………………………………………………………68
Results……….……………………………………………………..76
Discussion…………………………………………………………..79
Figures and Tables…………….……………………………………84
4. Longitudinal investigation of compassion meditation
Introduction…………..………………………….……………….101
What's missing from meditation research?...............................102
Goals of the study……………………………………..……...107
Hypotheses……………..…………………………………….109
Methods………………………………………………………..…110
Results……………………………….…..…………………….....117
Discussion.…………..……………………………………………121
Figures and Tables………………………….…………………….130
5. Meditation on the ground
Introduction…………………..…………………………………..150
Goals of the study……………………………….…………..153
Methods…….………………………………………….………..154
Results……………….………………………………….……….157
Discussion…………….…………………………………………161
Figures and Tables………………………………….……………169
6. Conclusion
Summary of findings…………………………………..…….…..181
Significance…………………………………..……………….…186
Problems encountered…………………………………..…….…190
Where to go from here…………………………………………...195
About this Dissertation
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