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Differential benefits of mental training types for attention, compassion, and theory of mind
Open accessAbstract
Mindfulness- and, more generally, meditation-based interventions increasingly gain popularity, effectively promoting cognitive, affective, and social capacities. It is unclear, however, if different types of practice have the same or specific effects on mental functioning. Here we tested three consecutive three-month training modules aimed at cultivating either attention, socio-affective qualities (such as compassion), or socio-cognitive skills (such as theory of mind), in three training cohorts and a retest control cohort (N = 332). While attentional performance improved most consistently after attention training, compassion increased most after socio-affective training and theory of mind partially improved after socio-cognitive training. These results show that specific mental training practices are needed to induce plasticity in different domains of mental functioning, providing a foundation for evidence-based development of more targeted interventions adapted to the needs of different education, labor, and health settings.
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“socio-affective practices led to increases in compassion and prosocial behavior and reductions in social stress [31,32,33].”
From 10-Week Trajectories of Candidate Psychological Processes Differentially Predict Mental Health Gains from Online Dyadic versus Mindfulness Interventions: A Randomized Clinical Trial (2024) · cites this paper as [31]
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“in a large-scale 9-month study, the ReSource project [29] employing three distinct intervention modules, it was shown that attention-focused mindfulness practices led to enhanced interoceptive awareness and attention control [30,31]”
From 10-Week Trajectories of Candidate Psychological Processes Differentially Predict Mental Health Gains from Online Dyadic versus Mindfulness Interventions: A Randomized Clinical Trial (2024) · cites this paper as [31]
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“socio-cognitive perspective-taking practices led to improvements in meta-cognitive awareness and Theory of Mind [30,31]”
From 10-Week Trajectories of Candidate Psychological Processes Differentially Predict Mental Health Gains from Online Dyadic versus Mindfulness Interventions: A Randomized Clinical Trial (2024) · cites this paper as [31]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Trautwein, F.-M., Kanske, P., Böckler, A., & Singer, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Haifa (IL)
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Trautwein, Fynn-Mathis
- Venue
- Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-01
- Volume
- 194
- Pages
- 104039
- ISSN
- 0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6891878
- OpenAlex
- W2779975816
- Cited by
- 139
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 16
- FWCI
- 16.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Cognition (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Research Council (205557)
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Seventh Framework Programme
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Keywords
- mindfulness training, meditation, attention training, compassion, theory of mind, socioemotional skills, socio-cognitive skills, neuroplasticity, targeted interventions, cognitive training
- MeSH terms
- Social Cognition, Psychosocial Intervention, Adult, Attention, Empathy, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Meditation, Young Adult, Theory of Mind, Mindfulness
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