The Influence Of Mindfulness On Social Mindfulness And Empathy In College Students And Its Neural Mechanism

Mindfulness emphasizes attention and awareness of current feelings and non-critical acceptance of various emotions and thoughts.Mindfulness training can improve individuals’perception of internal and external information,improve their negative evaluation of the external environment,and thus enhance individuals’ empathic ability and promote the generation of prosocial behaviors.However,in the previous studies on the influence of mindfulness on prosocial behavior,participants often needed to sacrifice their own interests to fulfill others,which was regarded as prosocial behavior,but this situation was not common in real life.Social mindfulness refers to paying attention to the social environment in a state of heightened awareness in an interdependent situation.That is,the act of recognizing the potential needs of others and protecting the needs and rights of others to choose in good faith.This kind of prosocial behavior is less detectable than ordinary prosocial behavior.At the same time,some scholars believe that empathy is the antecedent of social mindfulness,but there are few studies on it,and there is a lack of strong empirical evidence.In view of this,this study takes the impact of mindfulness on empathy and social mindfulness as the research object,and explores the relationship about them from the trait level and the state level respectively.This study consists of two parts.In the first study,a cross-sectional design based on self-report measure was adopted.Trait mindfulness,trait empathy and trait social mindfulness were used as measurement indicators to initially explore the relationship between trait mindfulness and social mindfulness,and to test the mediating role of trait empathy.On the basis of study 1,Study 2 aims to explore whether mindfulness training can improve individuals’ social mindfulness,and measure the EEG indicators of subjects before and after the training when they complete the cognitive empathy and emotional empathy experiment.Study 2 used two-factor variance design:2(group:mindfulness group,control group)x 2(measurement time:pretest,post-test)to investigate the effects of five days short-term mindfulness training on social mindfulness and the mediating role of state empathy.The results of study 1 showed that(1)trait mindfulness positively predicts social mindfulness,and trait empathy has a significant mediating effect.(2)In the sub-dimensions of trait mindfulness,the sub-dimensions of observation,description and acting with awareness can predict social mindfulness in a positive way,while the sub-dimensions of non-judgment can predict social mindfulness in a negative way.Empathy plays a mediating role.The results of study 2 showed that after the intervention training,(1)the response time of the training group was significantly lower than that of the pre-test,the amplitude of N2 and LPP decreased significantly;(2)The response time of the training group was significantly lower than that of the pre-test.The amplitude of P3 and P200 was not significantly different from that of the control group and the pre-test of training group.The amplitude of LFSW was significantly lower than that of the control group and the pre-test of training group.(3)The score of social mindfulness in post-test was significantly higher than that in pre-test and control group.These results indicate that at the trait level,mindfulness,social mindfulness and empathy are closely related,and empathy plays a mediating role in the influence of mindfulness on social mindfulness.At the state level,mindfulness training improves the level of social mindful behavior and the level of empathic EEG,but it has no obvious effect on the level of empathic behavior.