Compassion meditation increases optimism towards a transgressor

ABSTRACT

Past research reveals important connections between meditative practices and compassion. Most studies, however, focus on the effects of one type of meditation (vs. a no-intervention control) on a single expression of compassion (e.g. offering a seat) towards a relatable target (e.g. a person on crutches), without exploring possible mechanisms. Hence, few studies include different types of meditation, active controls, multiple ways to express compassion, unrelatable targets, and potential mediators. To this end, the present study compared the effects of mindfulness meditation with those of compassion meditation on different expressions of compassion towards a convicted murderer. Seventy-four participants were randomly assigned to a mindfulness meditation, compassion meditation, or active control class, or a no-class control. After an 8-week programme, we assessed compassion by giving participants the option of fulfilling a murderer’s request that they write him and then coding those letters for empathy, sympathy, forgiveness, and optimism. Participants in the compassion meditation class wrote more optimistic letters compared to participants in the other three conditions, in part because they valued positivity more. No statistically significant differences emerged for the other expressions of compassion. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of how meditation increases compassion towards unrelatable targets.

KEYWORDS:

• Compassion
• meditation
• improvisational theatre
• non-Western conceptualisation
• ideal affect

Acknowledgements

Thupten Jinpa is the principal author of the manual for one of the interventions being studied (i.e. Compassion Meditation). BKH: designed and executed the study, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. JS: designed the compassion measure used in this study. TJ: wrote the compassion meditation manual. JLT: designed the study, secured the funds for the study, and collaborated in the writing and editing of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We also conducted a univariate analysis of variance by group on optimism. The effect of group was statistically significant, F(3, 70) = 4.42, p = .01. The pairwise comparison between compassion and mindfulness meditation was also statistically significant (p = .01).

2 As described in Koopmann-Holm et al. (2013), we also have baseline measures of ideal affect. The results did not change when we included baseline ideal affect as covariate in our mediational analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University awarded to Jeanne Tsai and Birgit Koopmann-Holm, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love at Case Western Reserve University awarded to Jeanne Tsai and Birgit Koopmann-Holm, as well as Professional Development Grant 14015 awarded to Birgit Koopmann-Holm by the College of Arts and Sciences at Santa Clara University.