Plasticity of the Social Brain: Effects of a One-year Mental Training Study on Social Connectedness, Compassion, Theory of Mind, Social Stress, and the Body

In the last decades, plasticity research has suggested that training of mental capacities such as attention, mindfulness and compassion is effective and leads to positive changes in socio-affective and cognitive functions. Tania Singer will show first results of the ReSource Project, a large-scale multi-methodological one-year secular mental training program in which participants were trained in attention-based mindfulness, compassion and perspective taking on self and others. She will especially focus on introducing novel forms of intersubjective mental training performed with another partner aiming at boosting social closeness and interconnectedness. She will then argue for the differential effects of mindfulness-based as compared to socio-affective and socio-cognitive practices on outcomes such as attention, compassion, Theory of Mind, altruism as well as social stress and autonomic body regulation. She will then discuss those findings with regard to their relevance for contemplative neuroscience and society.