School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA.
Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 20;13(1):2967. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29614-9.
Extant research has demonstrated the positive intrapersonal effects of mindfulness training. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the effects of mindfulness training on interpersonal processes are less clear. Here, we combined a randomized control mindfulness training design with computational approach to moral decision-making and moral judgments. Participants were randomly assigned to a Training group (N = 32) who received an 8-week mindfulness training or a Control group (N = 26) who waited for the same period of time. Before and after the 8-week period, participants completed a moral decision-making task, where they made tradeoff between money for themselves and unpleasant electric shocks to another person, and a moral judgment task, where they evaluated the blameworthiness of someone else's choices in the same moral decision-making task. Trait mindfulness, as measured by the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, significantly increased from the pre- to post-training session for the Training group, but not the Control group, demonstrating the effectiveness of the mindfulness manipulation. For the Control group, participants' moral preference in both the decision-making task and the judgment task declined over time, exhibiting a "slippery slope" effect. In contrast, for the Training group, mindfulness training prevented moral preferences from declining. Computational modeling revealed that mindfulness training specifically reduced the increase in the weights of money over time in both the decision-making and judgment tasks, thereby curbing the "slippery slope" effects. These findings provide a cognitive account of the prosocial effects of mindfulness training on moral decision-making and moral judgments.
现有研究表明，正念训练具有积极的内在个体效应。然而，正念训练对人际过程影响的认知机制尚不清楚。在这里，我们将随机对照正念训练设计与计算方法相结合，用于道德决策和道德判断。参与者被随机分配到训练组（N=32）或对照组（N=26）。训练组接受了 8 周的正念训练，对照组则等待了相同的时间。在 8 周的时间前后，参与者完成了一个道德决策任务，在这个任务中，他们需要在自己的钱和另一个人不愉快的电击之间做出权衡；以及一个道德判断任务，在这个任务中，他们要评估在相同的道德决策任务中，其他人选择的应受责备程度。特质正念，用五因素正念量表来衡量，在训练组中从训练前到训练后显著增加，而对照组则没有，这证明了正念干预的有效性。对于对照组，参与者在决策任务和判断任务中的道德偏好随着时间的推移而下降，表现出“滑坡”效应。相比之下，对于训练组，正念训练阻止了道德偏好的下降。计算模型显示，正念训练特别减少了在决策和判断任务中金钱权重随时间的增加，从而遏制了“滑坡”效应。这些发现为正念训练对道德决策和道德判断的亲社会效应提供了认知解释。
