Effects of loving-kindness meditation on prosocial behavior: empirical and meta-analytic evidence
Journal of Social Marketing May 7, 2024 Carmen Valor, Carlos Martínez de Ibarreta, Isabel Carrero et al.
Brief loving-kindness meditation (LKM) increases feelings of love and has a small-to-medium significant effect on prosocial behavior compared to active control groups (d = 0.303). However, its effects on donations to unknown others were mixed across three experiments. Age and the type of prosocial measure used moderate the effects. The findings suggest that LKM can nurture prosocial emotions and lead young individuals to donate, but these emotions may not be sufficient to lead adult meditators to share resources with unknown others.