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The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Overview of attention for article published in Scientific Reports, February 2018
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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 (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
42 news outlets
blogs
11 blogs
twitter
420 X users
facebook
11 Facebook pages
wikipedia
7 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user
reddit
5 Redditors
video
1 YouTube creator

Citations

dimensions_citation
143 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
421 Mendeley
citeulike
1 CiteULike
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Title
The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Published in
Scientific Reports, February 2018
DOI 10.1038/s41598-018-20299-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Ute Kreplin, Miguel Farias, Inti A. Brazil

Abstract

Many individuals believe that meditation has the capacity to not only alleviate mental-illness but to improve prosociality. This article systematically reviewed and meta-analysed the effects of meditation interventions on prosociality in randomized controlled trials of healthy adults. Five types of social behaviours were identified: compassion, empathy, aggression, connectedness and prejudice. Although we found a moderate increase in prosociality following meditation, further analysis indicated that this effect was qualified by two factors: type of prosociality and methodological quality. Meditation interventions had an effect on compassion and empathy, but not on aggression, connectedness or prejudice. We further found that compassion levels only increased under two conditions: when the teacher in the meditation intervention was a co-author in the published study; and when the study employed a passive (waiting list) control group but not an active one. Contrary to popular beliefs that meditation will lead to prosocial changes, the results of this meta-analysis showed that the effects of meditation on prosociality were qualified by the type of prosociality and methodological quality of the study. We conclude by highlighting a number of biases and theoretical problems that need addressing to improve quality of research in this area.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 420 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 421 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 421 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 74 18%
Student > Master 54 13%
Researcher 38 9%
Student > Bachelor 36 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 35 8%
Other 87 21%
Unknown 97 23%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 146 35%
Neuroscience 30 7%
Medicine and Dentistry 24 6%
Nursing and Health Professions 23 5%
Social Sciences 21 5%
Other 55 13%
Unknown 122 29%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 668. 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 18 January 2024.
All research outputs
#32,144
of 25,547,324 outputs
Outputs from Scientific Reports
#506
of 141,677 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#734
of 447,002 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scientific Reports
#15
of 3,870 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,547,324 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 141,677 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% 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 447,002 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 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 3,870 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 99% of its contemporaries.