Intergroup conflicts serve as the primary cause of wars and violence around the world. Such conflicts are often triggered and maintained by intense antisocial emotions (e.g., anger), and can potentially be attenuated by prosocial emotions (e.g., empathy). Discovering effective approaches to decrease anger and increase empathy, therefore, is of critical importance. Several contemplative techniques involve …
Grant Type Archives:
Testing a compassionate community actively living mindfulness (CCALM) intervention: elucidating individual and dyadic pathways to PEACE character virtues
The project will examine how Prosociality, Empathy, Altruism, Compassion, and Ethics (PEACE) character virtues may change with transitions to assisted living arrangements among older adults and their romantic partners. The project will employ a novel contemplative practices intervention program we developed called Compassionate Community Actively Living Mindfulness (CCALM) into the healthcare system. We will strategically …
Mindfulness-based Critical Consciousness Training for Teachers (MBCC-T): Development, pilot test, and comparison to two control groups
African American, Latino, Native American, and Southeast Asian students, demonstrate significant educational underachievement and poorer behavioral outcomes compared to their White and other Asian American peers. These disparities emerge as early as preschool, and are reflected in poorer achievement test scores, and higher rates of drop-out, suspension, and expulsion from school. While acknowledging that many …
Sustainable Compassion Training’s effects on neural threat and social support
Social support is empirically linked to health and well-being, but the mechanisms of this link remain speculative along with target interventions that maximize social support during stressful times. Knowledge of these mechanisms and interventions is needed for a full understanding of the receipt and provision of care, particularly among those working in high stress environments …
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From barriers to bridges: Investigating contemplative approaches to social justice
Fostering meaningful dialogue about racism and other social justice issues is an urgent need in our increasingly polarized society. We hypothesized that kindness meditation (KM) may help participants maintain social connection, develop compassion, positive affect and altruism, while enabling them to manage the stress, negative affect and bias that can arise and derail these conversations. …
CBCT® (Cognitively-Based Compassion Training) at the hospital bedside
Although hospital chaplains play a critical role in delivering emotional and spiritual care to a broad range of both religious and non-religious patients, there is remarkably little research on the best-practices of chaplaincy training or “active ingredients” of chaplain spiritual consults. CBCT® (Cognitively-Based Compassion Training) is a secularized compassion meditation program that improves empathic accuracy …
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