Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum.
Open accessAbstract
Self-regulatory abilities are robust predictors of important outcomes across the life span, yet they are rarely taught explicitly in school. Using a randomized controlled design, the present study investigated the effects of a 12-week mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum (KC) delivered in a public school setting on executive function, self-regulation, and prosocial behavior in a sample of 68 preschool children. The KC intervention group showed greater improvements in social competence and earned higher report card grades in domains of learning, health, and social-emotional development, whereas the control group exhibited more selfish behavior over time. Interpretation of effect sizes overall indicate small to medium effects favoring the KC group on measures of cognitive flexibility and delay of gratification. Baseline functioning was found to moderate treatment effects with KC children initially lower in social competence and executive functioning demonstrating larger gains in social competence relative to the control group. These findings, observed over a relatively short intervention period, support the promise of this program for promoting self-regulation and prosocial behavior in young children. They also support the need for future investigation of program implementation across diverse settings.
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In children and adolescents, mindfulness programs have been found to improve social skills and prosocial conduct.
“Mindfulness interventions have shown effects for improving social skills and prosocial behaviors among children and adolescents (Beauchemin et al. 2008; Flook et al. 2015).”
From Nonattachment Predicts Empathy, Rejection Sensitivity, and Symptom Reduction After a Mindfulness-Based Intervention Among Young Adults with a History of Childhood Maltreatment (2020) · cites this paper as Flook et al. 2015
The Discussion (page not provided) reports larger gains in teacher-reported social competence and less selfish sharing behavior among preschool children who received the Kindness Curriculum. This supports the claim for young children, but the study does not establish effects among adolescents. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Flook, L., Goldberg, S. B., Pinger, L., & Davidson, R. J.
- Venue
- Developmental Psychology
- Published
- 2015-01
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 44-51
- ISSN
- 0012-1649 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-0599
- PMC
- PMC4485612
- OpenAlex
- W2120902536
- Cited by
- 560
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 63 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 63 · 2021: 56 · 2020: 62 · 2019: 53 · 2018: 48 · 2017: 43 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 145.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Developmental Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P30 HD003352)
- Templeton Foundation
- Fetzer Institute
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- prosocial behavior, self-regulation, executive function, preschool children, social competence, cognitive flexibility, delay of gratification, social-emotional development, selfishness
- MeSH terms
- Child Behavior, Child, Preschool, Curriculum, Emotions, Female, Humans, Learning, Male, Social Control, Informal, Executive Function, Mindfulness, Social Skills
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