Brief Mindfulness Meditation Promotes Prosocial Driving Behaviour: Evidence From Virtual Reality.

Brief mindfulness meditation training improved prosocial driving behavior in a virtual reality urban traffic scene. The positive effect persisted throughout the experiment, suggesting that even short mindfulness practice can make people friendlier while driving. This extends previous laboratory findings to a more realistic driving scenario, supporting the claim that mindfulness promotes prosocial behavior.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Several studies have shown that mindfulness positively correlates with people's prosocial behaviours. However, all of these studies were almost conducted in the context of a laboratory environment that required to be generalised to real-life situations. Thus, this study constructed an urban traffic scene through virtual reality technology to observe the effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on individuals' prosocial driving behaviour. We endeavoured to explore whether the effect of mindfulness on prosocial driving behaviour was real and occurred through the participants' responses. We found the improvement of mindfulness allows individuals to engage in more prosocial behaviours in the virtual driving environment, and this positive effect has been maintained throughout the process. This result demonstrates the effectiveness of brief mindfulness training and supports the claim that mindfulness promotes prosocial behaviour. Through this experiment, we extend the prosocial boosting effect of mindfulness to a more specific practical application scenario, where brief mindfulness training can make people friendlier while driving. This experiment sheds light on future research, observing responses in virtual reality to predict what might happen in real life to increase awareness of the positive effects of mindfulness.