School of Psychology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Brain, Belief, & Behaviour Lab, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Coventry University, Coventry, England.
Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 5;8(1):2403. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-20299-z.
Many individuals believe that meditation has the capacity to not only alleviate mental-illness but to improve prosociality. This article systematically reviewed and meta-analysed the effects of meditation interventions on prosociality in randomized controlled trials of healthy adults. Five types of social behaviours were identified: compassion, empathy, aggression, connectedness and prejudice. Although we found a moderate increase in prosociality following meditation, further analysis indicated that this effect was qualified by two factors: type of prosociality and methodological quality. Meditation interventions had an effect on compassion and empathy, but not on aggression, connectedness or prejudice. We further found that compassion levels only increased under two conditions: when the teacher in the meditation intervention was a co-author in the published study; and when the study employed a passive (waiting list) control group but not an active one. Contrary to popular beliefs that meditation will lead to prosocial changes, the results of this meta-analysis showed that the effects of meditation on prosociality were qualified by the type of prosociality and methodological quality of the study. We conclude by highlighting a number of biases and theoretical problems that need addressing to improve quality of research in this area.
许多人认为冥想不仅可以缓解精神疾病，还可以提高亲社会行为。本文系统地综述和荟萃分析了健康成年人随机对照试验中冥想干预对亲社会行为的影响。确定了五种社会行为：同情、同理心、攻击、联系和偏见。尽管我们发现冥想后亲社会行为有适度增加，但进一步分析表明，这种效果受到两个因素的限制：亲社会行为的类型和方法学质量。冥想干预对同情和同理心有影响，但对攻击、联系或偏见没有影响。我们进一步发现，只有在两种情况下，同情心水平才会增加：冥想干预中的教师是已发表研究的合著者；并且研究采用被动（候补名单）对照组而不是主动对照组。与冥想会导致亲社会变化的普遍观点相反，荟萃分析的结果表明，冥想对亲社会行为的影响受到研究的亲社会行为类型和方法学质量的限制。我们最后强调了一些需要解决的偏见和理论问题，以提高该领域研究的质量。
