Scholarly discourse has raised concerns about the gravitas of secular mindfulness trainings in promoting prosocial outgrowths, as these trainings lack ethics-based concepts found in contemplative traditions. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to test whether mindfulness trainings absent explicit ethics-based instructions promote prosocial action. There was a range of small to medium standardized mean difference effect sizes of mindfulness training on overt acts of prosociality when compared with active and inactive controls, k = 29, N = 3,100, g = .426, 95% confidence interval (CI)( g) = [.304, .549]. Reliable effect size estimates were found for single-session interventions that measured prosocial behavior immediately after training. Mindfulness training also reliably promotes compassionate (but not instrumental or generous) helping and reliably reduces prejudice and retaliation. Publication bias analyses indicated that the reliability of these findings was not wholly dependent on selective reporting. Implications for the science of secular mindfulness training on prosocial action are discussed.

Marcos. Ideas and findings in this manuscript have been disseminated in presentations at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. The authors declare no conflicts of interest and that no funding was used to conduct this research. This manuscript is being considered for publication in a peer reviewed journal. Material, protocol, and data are publicly available (https://osf.io/jb9td/). DRB, KR, and IPI, designed study concept. DRB and IPI designed Cyberball paradigm. DRB and KR wrote manuscript first draft. DRB provided infrastructure support as senior author, completed EEG data curation and formal analysis. KR, IPI, AM, JH, & DN designed study protocol, collected data, curated self-report/behavioral data, and contributed to manuscript editing.

Ostracism—being intentionally excluded—is painful, and when experienced vicariously, it elicits self-reported and neural responses correlated with compassion. This study examined event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to vicarious ostracism in a computer-simulated ball-toss game, called Cyberball. Participants observed three ostensible players at other universities play two rounds of Cyberball; in the first round all players were included, but in the second one player was ostracized. After the game, participants reported their compassion and wrote emails to the ostracism victim and perpetrators, coded for prosociality and harm. Condition differences in exclusion versus inclusion throws emerged in a frontal negative-going peak between 108 and 230ms, and in a posterior long-latency positive-going deflection between 548 to 900ms. It is believed the former reflects the feedback error related negativity component (fERN) and the latter the late positive potential (LPP). The fERN was not associated with self-reported compassion or helping behavior, however, the LPP was positively associated with empathic anger and helping the ostracism victim. Self-reported compassion was positively correlated with a frontal positive-going peak between 190 and 304ms, resembling the P3a. These findings highlight the importance of studying motivational dimensions of compassion alongside its cognitive and affective dimensions.