Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Mental State Attribution and Empathizing
Open accessAbstract
The ability to infer and understand the mental states of others (i.e., Theory of Mind) is a cornerstone of human interaction. While considerable efforts have focused on explicating when, why and for whom this fundamental psychological ability can go awry, considerably less is known about factors that may enhance theory of mind. Accordingly, the current study explored the possibility that mindfulness-based meditation may improve people's mindreading skills. Following a 5-minute mindfulness induction, participants with no prior meditation experience completed tests that assessed mindreading and empathic understanding. The results revealed that brief mindfulness meditation enhanced both mental state attribution and empathic concern, compared to participants in the control group. These findings suggest that mindfulness may be a powerful technique for facilitating core aspects of social-cognitive functioning.
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Eight included studies used written or recorded meditation instructions.
“A further eight studies used written or recorded meditation instructions13,35,39,42–46.”
From The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2018) · cites this paper as [46]
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- Authors
- Tan, L. B. G., Lo, B. C. Y., & Macrae, C. N.
- Affiliations
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- University of Aberdeen (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Tan, Lucy B. G.
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2014-10-17
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- e110510
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4201548
- OpenAlex
- W2150116348
- Cited by
- 104
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 7.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ResearchOnline - JCU (James Cook University) (submittedVersion)
- Digital Commons - Lingnan (Lingnan University) (submittedVersion)
- Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) (submittedVersion)
- Aberdeen University Research Archive (Aberdeen University) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- The HKU Scholars Hub (University of Hong Kong) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- mindfulness meditation, theory of mind, mental state attribution, empathizing, empathic concern, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Metacognition, Adolescent, Adult, Attention, Behavior, Emotions, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Stress, Psychological, Meditation, Mindfulness
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