Compassion meditation enhances empathic accuracy and related neural activity
Open accessAbstract
The ability to accurately infer others' mental states from facial expressions is important for optimal social functioning and is fundamentally impaired in social cognitive disorders such as autism. While pharmacologic interventions have shown promise for enhancing empathic accuracy, little is known about the effects of behavioral interventions on empathic accuracy and related brain activity. This study employed a randomized, controlled and longitudinal design to investigate the effect of a secularized analytical compassion meditation program, cognitive-based compassion training (CBCT), on empathic accuracy. Twenty-one healthy participants received functional MRI scans while completing an empathic accuracy task, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), both prior to and after completion of either CBCT or a health discussion control group. Upon completion of the study interventions, participants randomized to CBCT and were significantly more likely than control subjects to have increased scores on the RMET and increased neural activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). Moreover, changes in dmPFC and IFG activity from baseline to the post-intervention assessment were associated with changes in empathic accuracy. These findings suggest that CBCT may hold promise as a behavioral intervention for enhancing empathic accuracy and the neurobiology supporting it.
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All 7 low-risk studies that measured observable prosocial outcomes reported improvements following meditation.
“There were 7 low-risk studies that measured observable pro-social outcomes and all of them reported improvements following meditation (Kang, Gray, & Dovidio, 2014; Kemeny et al., 2012; Mascaro, Riling, Negi, & Raison, 2013; Rosenberg et al., 2015; Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015; Weng et al., 2013; Weng, Fox, Hessenthaler, Stodola, & Davidson, 2015).”
From A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Meditation on Empathy, Compassion, and Prosocial Behaviors (2018) · cites this paper as Mascaro, Riling, Negi, & Raison, 2013
The Empathic accuracy results report that more meditation participants improved on the observable RMET task than controls. But the Introduction distinguishes empathic accuracy from prosocial behavior, and the Discussion calls for future assessment of how practitioners relate to others in everyday life. This study supports an improvement in measured empathic accuracy, not an observed improvement in prosocial behavior. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured8 weeks of cognitive-based compassion training significantly enhances accuracy in inferring others' mental states in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and increases neural activation in the inferior frontal gyrus and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.
“Another study also reported that 8 weeks of cognitive-based compassion training could significantly enhance the accuracy in inferring others' mental states in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test [39] and increased the neural activation in the inferior frontal gyrus and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which are important for the theory of mind [40].”
From Potential therapeutic effects of meditation for treating affective dysregulation (2014) · cites this paper as [40]
Improvements in empathy were correlated with increased activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC).
“Mascaro et al. (2013) found that improvements in empathy were correlated with increased activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC).”
From A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Meditation on Empathy, Compassion, and Prosocial Behaviors (2018) · cites this paper as Mascaro et al., 2013
Short-term training of loving-kindness and compassion is associated with increases in empathy.
“Behavioral research has shown that short-term training of loving-kindness and compassion is associated with increases in daily positive affect (Kok et al., 2013), prosocial behavior (Leiberg et al., 2011;Weng et al., 2013), resilience (Fredrickson et al., 2008) and empathy (Mascaro et al., 2013).”
From Compassion-based emotion regulation up-regulates experienced positive affect and associated neural networks (2015) · cites this paper as Mascaro et al., 2013
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- Authors
- Mascaro, J. S., Rilling, J. K., Tenzin Negi, L., & Raison, C. L.
- Affiliations
- Emory University (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Corresponding author
- Mascaro, Jennifer S.
- Venue
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-09-05
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 48-55
- ISSN
- 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-5024
- PMC
- PMC3541495
- OpenAlex
- W2101750684
- Cited by
- 223
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 16.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Emory University
- National Institutes of Health (1f31at004878-01)
- National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (1F31AT004878-01)
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (1F31AT004878-01, R01AT004698, F31 AT004878, AT004698)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Keywords
- compassion meditation, empathic accuracy, facial expression recognition, Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, inferior frontal gyrus, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, social cognition, behavioral interventions, autism spectrum disorder
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Awareness, Brain, Cognition, Empathy, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Reference Values, Social Perception, Reproducibility of Results, Meditation, Theory of Mind, Functional Neuroimaging
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