Can mindfulness meditation training make you more compassionate?
We’d all like to hope so . . .
. . . but we’re biased. Most people probably think of themselves as compassionate, so it’s easy for us to believe that meditation training is working.
A group of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco wanted to find some firmer evidence.
They gathered 82 female schoolteachers, who they randomly assigned to a treatment condition or a waitlist.
The treatment group received a contemplative training program that included mindfulness training, yoga, and emotional skills practice. The waitlist group received the same training – after the experiment was over.
To measure the training’s effect, the teachers completed a series of emotionally provocative tasks three times: once before the training program, again immediately after the program, and a final time 5 months after the program’s completion.
First, to measure self-evaluation, the teachers carried out a stressful performance task – giving a speech before an audience. After giving the speech, researchers asked them to report their thoughts.
To measure compassion, researchers instructed the teachers to complete two tasks. First, they tried to recognize a series of microexpressions – facial expressions of seven basic emotions displayed for only a fraction of a second.
They also viewed a series of images of suffering, some of which were designed to elicit compassion alone, or compassion and disgust together. After each image, the teachers saw a letter string, suggesting a word related to compassion, disgust, a neutral object, or a nonword. Researchers measured the speed with which the teachers associated images and words.
Here’s what they found.
Teachers recognized the suffering of others significantly faster after completing the contemplative training, while the waitlist group showed no change. The treatment group also recognized the compassion-related words more quickly than the control group.
What’s more, the treatment group reported significantly fewer negative self-evaluations after completing the performance task, suggesting that the contemplative training also improved self-compassion.
The really interesting thing about this research – aside from the comparatively robust sample size – is that it uses completion of tasks, rather than self-reports, to measure compassion.
This means that the teachers couldn’t give biased responses, since they were presumably all trying to complete the association task as best they could.
However, there’s one important flaw with this study. It only uses a wait-list control, so we can’t be sure that meditation training is really what made the difference. Maybe people’s compassion improved because they were getting attention from a concerned teacher. Maybe simply getting together in a group once a week helped.
Despite this weakness, I think this study is a good foundation for future research.
If you’d like to read more, you can find the full study in the journal Emotion.
Mindfulness doesn’t just improve compassion, though. In fact, we’ve collected some remarkable evidence showing how mindfulness works in so many ways.
Do you have an especially memorable story of a time you helped a client work on compassion? Please share your experience in the comments below.
While I am pleased to learn that more studies are being done in this area and it was interesting to read, I’m not sure that I am comfortable with our obsession with having to explain, measure and quantify everything scientifically. If its not proven by the almighty God of Science, it can’t possibly be so! I was also very taken aback and actually offended by the title of the email link to this post. “Compassion isn’t natural…” That’s a pretty serious and very misleading statement. It felt like reading the cover of a hollywood tabloid with shocking headlines that are flat out untruths or have nothing to do with the content just to get people to buy magazines. I have to say Ruth, I am really not a fan of the whole marketing format you are using period. I find it very pushy with a lot of carrot dangling requiring people to buy things or sign up for more yet more emails to receive any information of real substance. I was initially very excited to sign up for this and stay subscribed to catch the gems when they come along and sincerely want to learn and make connections, however I feel that receiving emails everyday is far too much, especially when I’ve found that much of it is of no real substance. I am certain your intentions are good, I respect your experience and knowledge and applaud your motivation to both reach and connect more people, but please be mindful of how you deliver your messages and how often!
We have natural empathy when young. We also are biologically programed for fight or flight.
Through socialization, we need to fight to fit in, be accepted, fight our way to the top. As we struggle through the busyness of life, we leave no room for empathy and compassion.
By taking the time to sit still, fully present and mindful, we allow ourselves to reconnect with empathy and compassion, even for ourselves, which in itself is a cultural no no.
Thank you for this informative post. I would be interested in learning more details about the contemplative training program that included mindfulness training, yoga, and emotional skills practice. Is this following MBSR or some other Mindfulness curriculum?
Thank You
I’m convinced that mindfulness alleviates inflammation. Having suffered debilitating symptoms of Lyme Disease, both physical and mental, I am well. I believe that mindfulness and self-compassion have more to do with the healing process than we can imagine. My amygdala was invaded, and the terror was enormous. Following treatment, I’m more fortunate than a lot of patients who are in recovery. I owe a lot of it to mindfulness practices and holding on to self-compassion, which has in turn greatly enhanced my compassion for others who suffer with Lyme Disease and other chronic illnesses. I believe that mindfulness and self-compassion greatly contribute to neuroplasticity and cortical remapping. It has worked for me so far! Thank you, Ruth, for your latest video and for all your amazing contributions.
Ruth, methinks you have a personal paradigm shift invitation.
I share a belief with the others who have written in with their response to your title.
Perhaps, as Marshall Rosenberg (founder of Nonviolent Communication) says, a primary need that we all have is to contribute to the well-being of others. Perhaps we are all born with the ability and urge to have empathy and compassion for one another. Perhaps our cultural conditioning teaches us fear-based reactions and responses that block our innate state of compassion.
Anyway, that’s the paradigm under which I operate.
Care to join us? Come on in, the water’s warm… 😉
I think mindfulness training can promote all sorts of changes “too numerous to mention”. This is because it entails a “core” change which is the way I present it to my patients. That is why Kabat- Zinn’s group benefited an assortment of patients who were in that group.
I appreciate your sharing this research. But I wanted to voice my gut response from the email title:”Compassion isn’t natural”. I have seen that compassion can be fully natural, as demonstrated by toddlers, the very young, perhaps more prevalently than in adults who have learned the social mores – including how to look past so much that surrounds us. But that is an indication of “learned” rather than of “natural”.
one thing that made a big difference for me was Rick Hansons book. Thoughts have no power.
If a client could go to the doctor and get a jolt of cortisol and adrenaline resembling a trigger firing, they would know that thought adds nothing.
My triggers do not fire my fight or flight system now. Did I integrate my thoughts or did I slowly empty my amygdala of trauma memories. if they do not fire are they removed from the amygdala or not?
Clients think thoughts have power. I always ask someone who believes thoughts are dangerous to prove it to me. Go out to the street and think about stopping traffic. if you can not, then why believe trauma thoughts are different.
From the new neuroscience data, connecting to the right hemisphere, an egoless space has to bring a little more equanimity depending on the quality of your practice and frequency of siting.
it does not take that much time in a daily practice to make huge gains. It depends if the client can apply his/her focus on the breath when emotion and thought explode.
Applying mindfulness integrates the delusion of PTSD. being healed now, I see all my worry and fear were delusions. When I could stay present when triggers dumped cortisol into my system, nothing was behind the fear and worry.
PTSD just has the switch to our fight or flight mechanism, the amygdala has stored these memories in a special way. It all collapses when we stay present during fearful triggers.
Hi Ruth,
Thank-you for the information. Is this work actually published? If so, will you please give a full citation? If it is not and the researchers would not mind being contacted, will you forward me thier info? I am currently working on the priliminary steps in developing mindfulness vs. just thinking research. I think that the intention behind the activity is the difference that makes a difference. Once again, thank-you.
Phillip R Ludwig
Hi Phillip,
The full study can be found here.
Here’s the citation.
Kemeny et al. 2012. “Contemplative/Emotion Training Reduces Negative Emotional Behavior
and Promotes Prosocial Responses.” In Emotion.
The email that linked to this article asserted: “Compassion isn’t natural.” Now, that would seem to be the opposite of the truth. Do you have any evidence to support the claim?
Any chance of a reply on this? I notice some others have challenged the ‘Compassion isn’t natural’ assertion too.
In my experience, compassion is like any gift, you must have the gift yourself in order to give it to others. The instruction is … “Love your neighbor AS yourself.” Warm :)) Aila
First of all, let me say that I am not a professional psychologist. i am very much an elder, who has always been interested in psychology.
I was taught many years ago, by a spiritual teacher, to close my eyes and connect my stilled-mind with what he called “me”, which is the solar plexus. Over the years, in which I have listened in this way i have become more conscious, more compassionate.
Very interesting case on the complexity of compassion, Frances. Thanks for sharing it.
I was working with a couple today – and the male didn’t seem to have any compassion when his partner said she didn’t feel safe with his driving. After some exploration we realised that because he didn’t feel he was able to have safety in his life ( from his childhood) he then wasn’t willing to create safety for his partner. Basically – Self compassion (and safety is primary for Other compassion and safety.)