The purpose of this project is to evaluate the effects of a mindfulness-based prosocial skills training curriculum in preschool students with a larger sample in order to replicate and extend findings from initial pilot work conducted in previous years. Participants from the local public school 4-year old Kindergarten program were recruited and participated in pre …
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Investigating the correlates and consequences of directed loving-kindness meditation
The need for social connection is a fundamental human motive, and it is increasingly clear that feeling socially connected confers mental and physical health benefits. However, in many cultures, societal changes are leading to growing social distrust and alienation. Can feelings of social connection and positivity toward others be increased? Is it possible to self-generate …
The FACE Study: Faces, Attention, Compassion, and Emotion
While the mien of meditation masters such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama is often remarked upon as a powerful component of the fruit of their practice, little is known scientifically about links between the practice of meditation and changes in facial expression and whether these changes would be linked to emotional and/or physiological variables. …
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Compassion meditation vs. cognitive reappraisal as emotion regulation strategies to negative stimuli: An fMRI investigation
Previous emotion regulation studies (Ochsner et al., 2004, Urry et al., 2006) have used reappraisal as a strategy to investigate neural mechanisms of down-regulating negative emotion. Compassion may also be viewed as a regulatory strategy to cope with negative emotion, which may differ in neural mechanism and positive behavioral outcomes. In a pilot study, we investigate …
Trust and Christian contemplative practice: A social neuroscientific study of spiritual capital in a contemplative tradition
Growing recognition of the benefits of contemplative practice for the reduction of harmful stress and the improvement of prosocial behavior is prompting research into how these effects arise. We define contemplative practice as intentionally attempting to suspend all discursive and evaluative thought. In practice, most forms of contemplative practice emphasize compassion for self and others, …
Cultivating Emotional Balance Classroom Project
Daily teachers are confronted with challenging child behaviors that provoke their emotional reactivity and result in stress that may affect the classroom climate and the pupils’ learning (Emmer, 1994; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). Although teachers’ emotionally-related behavior may have powerful effects on the social and emotional development of their pupils (Hamre & Pianta, 2001), few …
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Session I – The Concept of Botho/Ubuntu: its Expression and Resilience in the Lived Experiences of Batswana and Other Indigenous Africans
The concept of Botho/Ubuntu encapsulates the fundamental values, belief systems, cosmological worldviews and livelihood practices of indigenous Africans generally and Batswana in particular. Botho/Ubuntu is manifested in the Botswana internal and external environment, and it guides the manner in which communities interact with one another and with their external environment. Tswana idioms and proverbs, and …
Session III – I am Because we are: Dynamic and Embodied Brain-to-brain Coupling as a new Framework for Social Interaction Between People
The Botho/Ubuntu view of “a person is a person through other persons” can illuminate both the best and the worst sides of humanity. Our research investigates how the brain responses of individuals are shaped by their interaction with other brains. We test how the brain responses of listeners, during verbal communication, are shaped to match …
Session III – The Impact of Trauma on the Brain: Structural Changes and Behavioral Outcome
Evolution has shaped our brains to be ready for the worst. Some parts of the brain, like the amygdala, are similar across species and activate rapid responses in life-threatening situations. Although these responses are essential for escaping an unexpected assault or burning building, these same systems can be activated by stressors whose solutions require a …
Session I – The History and Contemporary Frame of Botho/Ubuntu: Philosophical and Sociocultural Complexities
The common conception of Botho/Ubuntu is that it is a theory of African humanism. Many reasons suggest however, that its application and understanding in the contemporary socio-political imagination in societies where Botho/ Ubuntu is preached, is merely as a practical ideology. Viewed as an ideology, its role as an ethical guide for conduct is also …
