Abstract
Mindfulness- and, more generally, meditation-based interventions increasingly gain popularity, effectively promoting cognitive, affective, and social capacities. It is unclear, however, if different types of practice have the same or specific effects on mental functioning. Here we tested three consecutive three-month training modules aimed at cultivating either attention, socio-affective qualities (such as compassion), or socio-cognitive skills (such as theory of mind), in three training cohorts and a retest control cohort (N = 332). While attentional performance improved most consistently after attention training, compassion increased most after socio-affective training and theory of mind partially improved after socio-cognitive training. These results show that specific mental training practices are needed to induce plasticity in different domains of mental functioning, providing a foundation for evidence-based development of more targeted interventions adapted to the needs of different education, labor, and health settings.
Highlights
In a more and more complex and interconnected world—with constant exposure to multi-channel online stimulation, global competition for limited resources, and penetration of socio-cultural borders—the question if and how human capacities such as attention and social and emotional intelligence can be cultivated has become increasingly salient
These results show that specific mental training practices are needed to induce plasticity in different domains of mental functioning, providing a foundation for evidence-based development of more targeted interventions adapted to the needs of different education, labor, and health settings
We tested whether the different training modules have effects on the respective targeted outcome measures (Presence on attention, Affect on compassion, and Perspective on ToM) over and above effects of retest and the other training modules
Summary
In a more and more complex and interconnected world—with constant exposure to multi-channel online stimulation, global competition for limited resources, and penetration of socio-cultural borders—the question if and how human capacities such as attention and social and emotional intelligence can be cultivated has become increasingly salient. Previous research focused on interventions that integrate a range of different contemplative practices, such as on the well-known mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) (Kabat-Zinn, 1990), and mostly lacked the direct comparison with other meditation-based control conditions. It remains unclear whether different types of practice, pursuing different aims (Dahl, Lutz, & Davidson, 2015), can induce plasticity in distinct mental functions. The specific fingerprints of these mental practices are still poorly understood despite the fact that future evidence-based implementation of interventions adapted to specific needs of health, labor, or education contexts will require knowledge of their outcome specificity
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