Lonelier people feel less empathic despite intact neural empathy responses after meditation training.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience January 21, 2026 Marla Dressel, Naomi Nero, Paige Freeburg et al.
Loneliness, which has reached an all-time high in the United States, has been linked to reduced self-reported empathy. Loving kindness meditation (LKM) is aimed at extending love and kindness to others and has been shown to increase empathy. But whether LKM can reduce loneliness, and whether this corresponds to higher levels of trait empathy, state empathy, and/or neural empathic responding,...