Although kindness-based contemplative practices are increasingly employed by clinicians and cognitive researchers to enhance prosocial emotions, social cognitive skills, and well-being, and as a tool to understand the basic workings of the social mind, we lack a coherent theoretical model with which to test the mechanisms by which kindness-based meditation may alter the brain and body. Here, we...

Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is an ancient technique based on generating kind intentions, compassion, and wishes of well-being towards oneself others, while visualizing the target individual those intentions are directed to. Regular LKM practice results in more positive emotions, reduction stress increase emotional processing, feelings compassion empathy. Here, we present our work designing...

Multiple measures exist that examine the attentional aspects of meditation practice, but measurement of the compassion component is relatively understudied. This paper describes the development and initial validation of a scale designed to measure application of the four immeasurable qualities at the heart of Buddhist teachings: loving kindness, compassion, joy and acceptance toward both self a...

The paper analyses how two private post-tsunami reconstruction initiatives in Sri Lanka mobilized well intended aid to support and assist tsunami affected families, drawing on narratives of compassion, which resulted in an inadvertent obtrusion of the moral imperatives of donors upon the lives of aid receivers. We trace the discursive terrain around goodness, kindness and compassion utilized to...

OBJECTIVE Compassion is critical for complementary and conventional care, but little is known about its direct physiologic effects. This study tested the feasibility of delivering two lengths of time (10 and 20 minutes) and two strategies (tactile and nontactile) for a practitioner to nonverbally communicate compassion to subjects who were blind to the interventions. METHODS Healthy volunteer...

Divorce is a highly stressful event, and much remains to be learned about the factors that promote psychological resilience when marriages come to an end. In this study, divorcing adults (N = 109) completed a 4-min stream-of-consciousness recording about their marital separation at an initial laboratory visit. Four judges rated the degree to which participants exhibited self-compassion (defined...

The neoliberal university can be a restrictive, repressive, and/or oppressive space. However, the contributions in this edited publication “Reimagining Academy: ShiFting towards Kindness, Connection, and an Ethics of Care” by Alison L Black Rachael Dwyer published Palgrave Macmillan represent hope, kindness, love, compassion. words works contained book gift to any reader many enriching, impactf...

Background: Stress is a critical problem facing many healthcare institutions. The consequences of stress include increased provider burnout and decreased quality of care for patients. Ironically, a key factor that may help buffer the impact of stress on provider well-being and patient health outcomes—compassion—is low in healthcare settings and declines under stress. This gives rise to an urgen...