Adolescents bear the burden of complex global challenges head, yet as recent events have shown, they are also drivers of change. Youth mindfulness programmes (YMPs), now increasingly prevalent in educational and juvenile justice settings, are thought to promote resilience and emotional skills, drawing on neuroscience to inform interventions. Moreover, neurobiological ideas are frequently incorporated into …
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Mechanisms of Meditation and Consequences for Clinical Practice
Mindfulness and meditation are increasingly used in clinical practice to treat conditions such as depression, anxiety and addiction. However, the fundamental mechanisms underlying these practices are not yet well-known and theoretical frameworks are sparse. Two important explanatory mechanisms that will be considered in this workshop are sticky thinking (cognitive fusion) and the sense of self. …
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Embodiment, Contemplative Practice, and Equality: Developing a Programmatic and Research Agenda for Reducing Ingroup Bias through Embodied Inquiry and Contemplative Practice
Prejudice and discrimination have destructive consequences in contemporary society. Discrimination based on social categorization (e.g., by gender, age or ethnicity) is thought to stem from implicit and explicit expression of in-group bias, a preference for others who belong to one’s own salient social categories. Existing theories are limited in explaining how to limit the effects …
Nonattachment, group identity, and memory of historical injustices
The aim of this project is to extend my previous work on nonattachment by assessing its role in group identity and memory of historical injustices. I will assess individual differences in nonattachment in the general American population and test the effect of nonattachment on (1) previously known effects of group identity on biases in memory …
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Changing our perception of others through compassion meditation
In this study we will examine the neural and autonomic correlates of emotional face perception before and after Compassion meditation practice. Our long-term goal of this project is to contribute to an improved understanding of how stress-causing social perceptions can be changed through Compassion meditation (ComM). Our objective in this study is to determine if, …
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Measurement and correlates of nonattachment
The Buddhist philosophy that non-attachment is important to well-being seems to contradict Western attachment theory’s notion that healthy attachment is a key to well-being. Nevertheless, the initial developmental paths of the two systems may overlap: Reliance on warm, responsive, and autonomy-supportive caregivers may promote felt security in both cases through the use of security inducing …
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Session IV – The Role of Botho/Ubuntu in Modern Responses to Children’s and Women’s Rights Issues in Africa
How can the role and nature of Botho/Ubuntu in African societies be reconciled with the many incidences of violations of women and children’s rights we witness in modern society? How have African societies travelled from historical perspectives that highlighted definitions of integrated individual and collective humanity of all peoples to current violations that include far …
Session IV – The Biology of Care and Conflict in Groups
Relations between groups can be peaceful and mutually beneficial. Human groups co-exist, trade goods and care for one another. But relations between groups can also be competitive, and sometimes violent. Indeed, the human ability to care for “us” (our in-group) often seems to coincide with an ability to compete against “them” (out-groups). In our work …
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Session I – The Concept of Botho/Ubuntu: its Expression and Resilience in the Lived Experiences of Batswana and Other Indigenous Africans
The concept of Botho/Ubuntu encapsulates the fundamental values, belief systems, cosmological worldviews and livelihood practices of indigenous Africans generally and Batswana in particular. Botho/Ubuntu is manifested in the Botswana internal and external environment, and it guides the manner in which communities interact with one another and with their external environment. Tswana idioms and proverbs, and …
Session III – I am Because we are: Dynamic and Embodied Brain-to-brain Coupling as a new Framework for Social Interaction Between People
The Botho/Ubuntu view of “a person is a person through other persons” can illuminate both the best and the worst sides of humanity. Our research investigates how the brain responses of individuals are shaped by their interaction with other brains. We test how the brain responses of listeners, during verbal communication, are shaped to match …
