Cited by 290Mindfulness and Compassion InterventionsStress Responses and CortisolHeart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control

Self-compassion training modulates alpha-amylase, heart rate variability, and subjective responses to social evaluative threat in women

Open access
Arch, Joanna J., Brown, Kirk Warren, Dean, Derek J., Landy, Lauren N., Brown, Kimberley D., Laudenslager, Mark L.·2014·Psychoneuroendocrinology

Abstract

A growing body of research has revealed that social evaluative stressors trigger biological and psychological responses that in chronic forms have been linked to aging and disease. Recent research suggests that self-compassion may protect the self from typical defensive responses to evaluation. We investigated whether brief training in self-compassion moderated biopsychological responses to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in women. Compared to attention (placebo) and no-training control conditions, brief self-compassion training diminished sympathetic (salivary alpha-amylase), cardiac parasympathetic, and subjective anxiety responses, though not HPA-axis (salivary cortisol) responses to the TSST. Self-compassion training also led to greater self-compassion under threat relative to the control groups. In that social stress pervades modern life, self-compassion represents a promising approach to diminishing its potentially negative psychological and biological effects.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2013.12.018

Cites

49 of 49 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Only two included studies assessed confounding factors, and only five reported the method of randomization.

    “Only two studies assessed confounding factors, such as demand characteristics34,35, and only five reported the method of randomization36–40.”

    From The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2018) · cites this paper as [35]

    The Methods (Design and Procedures; page unavailable) report a check for cohort effects, and the Statistical Approach describes adjustment for potential confounders. The paper also says participants were randomly assigned, but does not specify how the randomization sequence was generated. As an individual study, it cannot establish the citing document’s counts of two and five included studies. (LLM, conf=0.76)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • These compassion studies used as the major outcome measure a scale of Self-Compassion that assessed the same emotions that were elicited during the intervention.

    “Also, these studies used as the major outcome measure a scale of Self-Compassion that assessed the same emotions that were elicited during the intervention35,37,38,47.”

    From The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2018) · cites this paper as [35]

    The Methods (Measures; page unavailable) say the study used the Self-Compassion Scale to assess changes in self-compassion, and Methods (Design and Procedures; page unavailable) describe training in kindness and acceptance toward oneself. But the paper also identifies anxiety and physiological responses as major outcomes; it does not present the Self-Compassion Scale as the major outcome measure. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Earlier studies have failed to find any effects of contemplative mental training on HF-HRV at rest.

    “Earlier studies have failed to find any effects of contemplative mental training on HF-HRV at rest52–54.”
  • The null result for Local Power at rest is in line with earlier studies investigating the effects of contemplative mental training on HF-HRV.

    “This is in line with earlier studies investigating the effects of contemplative mental training on HF-HRV52–54.”
  • Recent studies on compassion using alternate forms of measurement, for example physiological measures such as heart-rate variability, provide important additional data to this debate.

    “Recent studies on compassion using alternate forms of measurement, for example physiological measures such as heart-rate variability, provide important additional data to this debate [124–129].”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Mattick RP Clarke JC Development and validation of measures of social phobia scruitiny fear and social interaction anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy 1998 36 455 470 9670605

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Arch, J. J., Brown, K. W., Dean, D. J., Landy, L. N., Brown, K. D., & Laudenslager, M. L.
Affiliations
  • University of Colorado Boulder (US)
  • Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
  • University of Colorado Anschutz (US)
Corresponding author
Arch, Joanna J.
Venue
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2014-04
Volume
42
Pages
49-58
ISSN
0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2116825219
Cited by
290
References
49
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 6
FWCI
25.18
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Cancer Institute (CA126971, R01CA126971)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
Keywords
self-compassion training, social-evaluative threat, Trier Social Stress Test, salivary amylase, heart rate variability, sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system, anxiety, salivary cortisol, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, women, stress response
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Anxiety, Attention, Empathy, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System, Pituitary-Adrenal System, Saliva, Stress, Psychological, Meditation, Salivary alpha-Amylases, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review