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Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Mental State Attribution and Empathizing

Overview of attention for article published in PLOS ONE, October 2014
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (95th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
blogs
4 blogs
twitter
10 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page

Citations

dimensions_citation
74 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
252 Mendeley
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Title
Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Mental State Attribution and Empathizing
Published in
PLOS ONE, October 2014
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0110510
Pubmed ID
Authors

Lucy B. G. Tan, Barbara C. Y. Lo, C. Neil Macrae

Abstract

The ability to infer and understand the mental states of others (i.e., Theory of Mind) is a cornerstone of human interaction. While considerable efforts have focused on explicating when, why and for whom this fundamental psychological ability can go awry, considerably less is known about factors that may enhance theory of mind. Accordingly, the current study explored the possibility that mindfulness-based meditation may improve people's mindreading skills. Following a 5-minute mindfulness induction, participants with no prior meditation experience completed tests that assessed mindreading and empathic understanding. The results revealed that brief mindfulness meditation enhanced both mental state attribution and empathic concern, compared to participants in the control group. These findings suggest that mindfulness may be a powerful technique for facilitating core aspects of social-cognitive functioning.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 10 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 252 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 2 <1%
France 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Spain 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Japan 1 <1%
Luxembourg 1 <1%
Unknown 244 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 53 21%
Student > Master 36 14%
Student > Doctoral Student 27 11%
Researcher 24 10%
Student > Bachelor 23 9%
Other 51 20%
Unknown 38 15%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 119 47%
Social Sciences 19 8%
Medicine and Dentistry 13 5%
Neuroscience 12 5%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 7 3%
Other 31 12%
Unknown 51 20%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 54. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 May 2023.
All research outputs
#703,133
of 23,792,386 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#9,685
of 203,183 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#7,996
of 260,050 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#248
of 5,146 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,792,386 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 203,183 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 260,050 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 5,146 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.