Post on 14-May-2023
To be published in New Directions in Youth Development (2014)
Mindfulness and Compassion Training in Adolescence:
A Developmental Contemplative Science Perspective
Robert W. Roeser, PhD and Cristi Pinela, MS
Department of Psychology, Portland State University
Headnote: There has been a steady increase in interest in introducing secular
mindfulness and compassion training programs in schools and community
settings to prevent social-emotional difficulties and to enhance positive
youth development. This article explores this emerging trend in both
practical and scientific terms.
All of us, at some moment, have had a vision of our existence as something
unique, untransferable, and very precious. This revelation almost always
takes place during adolescence (p. 9).1
Adolescence has long been known as a developmental period characterized by
both opportunity and risk. The simultaneous changes in body and brain, mind,
and social experiences, and social roles in families, peer groups, schools,
and communities that define the second decade of life are associated with
profound opportunities for the cultivation of flourishing among youth. At the
same time, adolescence is a period when emotional-behavioral problems like
depression, interpersonal difficulties like bullying, and various risk-taking
behaviors rise.2
Decades of research show that by affording adolescents the kinds of social
environments that “fit” with their developmental needs, adults, communities,
and institutions can reduce risks and promote positive development.3–6 In
essence, insuring that young people realize the unique, nontransferable, and
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
2
very precious nature of their existences during adolescence is an inter-
generational project.7 The practical and scientific questions we take up here
in relation to this project include the following: What role (if any) might
secular forms of mindfulness and compassion training for adolescents play in
an overall strategy of risk reduction and investments in positive youth
development by parents, teachers, and community leaders? How might such
trainings address adolescent developmental needs, and build skills and
dispositions that may not be being taught in school and community settings?8–10
Adolescence as Window of Opportunity
To explore the potential role of mindfulness and compassion training
during adolescence, we adopt the assumptive framework of positive youth
development6, and emphasize the notion that adolescence represents a kind of
“greenhouse” for the cultivation of positive identities and purposes,
skillsets and mindsets, and a compassionate understanding of self and
others.11 We argue that adolescence is a window of opportunity because young
people are intrinsically motivated in the years following puberty to become
contributing adult members of an “on-going cultural concern”.7 Also, beginning
around puberty, there is considerable developmental plasticity in
adolescents’ brains12 and in associated psychological and social-cognitive
systems underlying adolescents’ development of a psycho-social identity.7 For
example, powers of self-reflection and social-perspective taking increase, as
do interest in and concerns with evaluations and understanding of self and
others during these years.13,14
Such developmental plasticity means that the factors underlying the co-
construction of a healthy psychosocial identity are rather malleable during
adolescence— meaning subject to modification by personal habits, choices, and
myriad sociocultural influences.15–18 The question becomes, what forms of
cultural socialization and educational enrichment come to meet youth during
this “window of opportunity” to help them fulfill developmental needs,
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
3
emerging capacities, and passions constructively? How might secular
mindfulness and compassion training programs harness such plasticity and
channel it in positive directions? Can such trainings help young people to
develop psychological and social skills and dispositions associated with a
healthy identity, one that includes and transcends self to also include
contributions to others? To begin our discussion, we introduce Developmental
Contemplative Science (DCS).
Introducing Developmental Contemplative Science
DCS is a nascent, inter-disciplinary effort to derive a new understanding
of the mind/body system and its prospects for transformation across the
lifespan through various forms of physical and mental training.19 DCS holds
three core assumptions. First, the brain is viewed as inherently adaptive,
evolved to change in response to experience and intentional training and
education through various forms of neuroplasticity.20 Second, practices such
as mindfulness or compassion training represent specialized forms of mental
training, which (when engaged in for an extended period of time with
guidance), are thought to significantly alter cognitive, emotional, and motor
processes, and their correlated neural substrates, in ways akin to skill
acquisition and the development of expertise.21,22 Becoming expert in
mindfulness and compassion skills is associated with such skills becoming
second nature and applied automatically in daily life.23 Third, there may be
windows of opportunity in the lifespan (e.g., early childhood, early
adolescence) when (a) specific brain regions and networks are particularly
modifiable (based upon experience-expectant and experience-dependent forms of
neuroplasticity); and (b) the introduction of specialized forms of enrichment
and training may support young people in navigating developmental life-tasks
and building life-long skills and dispositions associated with health, well-
being, academic success, and social participation.24,25 Such windows of
opportunity are not isolated to early development, however. They open to some
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
4
degree whenever an individual embarks on behavioral change through
intentional efforts over a sustained period of time.
From a DCS perspective, the introduction of mindfulness and compassion
training may hold promise as an enrichment strategy that capitalizes on
developmental plasticity in neural and psychological systems during
adolescence, supports youth in navigating the development of a psychosocial
identity, and cultivates specific skills and dispositions for doing so, and
for leading a happy, healthy and productive life. Why?
A Stage-Environment Fit Approach to Adolescents’ Identity Development
From a lifespan developmental perspective, successful identity development
involves a “fit” between the developmental needs of adolescents and the
opportunities they are afforded in families, schools, and communities.3,7 Three
basic needs have been hypothesized to shape adolescents’ self/identity
development: the needs for competence, belonging, and autonomy.3,26 We posit
three additional needs during adolescence that mindfulness and compassion
training may assist adolescents’ in fulfilling in healthy ways.
First, in addition to a need for competence concerning what one is good
at, we propose that adolescents have a need for wisdom concerning how to be
fully human. Through provisions of wise mentors with embodied life
experience; use of wisdom texts, myths, poems and stories; and philosophical
debate and discussion, adults can help youth address this need in healthy,
life-giving ways.27
Second, in addition to a need for belonging and gaining social acceptance,
we propose adolescents have a need for mattering to one’s groups, community
and society in terms of making significant contributions to them.5,6 Creating
real opportunities for youth to resolve conflicts constructively, to make
authentic and positive contributions in their families, schools and
communities, and to reflect on these processes, all represent activities that
may assist adolescents in fulfilling this need in healthy ways.
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
5
Third, in addition to a need for autonomy concerning who one chooses to be
as a person, we propose a need for self-transcendence during adolescence, for
losing oneself in something beyond self.28 There are a multitude of secular
avenues available to cultivate healthy forms of self-transcendent awareness
and pro-social motivation during adolescence.28 These include the arts; music
and dance; martial arts and tai-chi; games, stories, and films; being in
nature; collective acts of kindness, and so on.29,30 We believe secular
mindfulness and compassion training may provide adolescents with a healthy
means of fulfilling their needs for wisdom, mattering and self-transcendence.
In so doing, such trainings may also support healthy identity development.
Helping young people to address such needs in healthy ways seems
critically important today. Adolescents’ need for wisdom is vulnerable to
manipulation by unscrupulous adults and institutions - for instance, those
promoting worldviews characterized by pseudo-speciation – a process of
demarcating out-groups as less-than-human in ways that justify righteous
group strife and aggrandized in-group esteem31; and by multi-national
corporations aiming to sell adolescents’ products and a vision of materialism
as a way to enduring happiness.32
Similarly, adolescents’ need to matter is vulnerable to manipulation by
adults and organizations that exploit it for purposes such as war or
prostitution.33,34 Finally, adolescents’ need for self-transcendence is
vulnerable to the absence of attention by adults and institutions in
particular, and may lead to substance abuse and risky behavior35, suicidal
violence36, and other self-abnegating purposes.28 Exploring the full range of
cultural activities and programs in different societies that aim to address
these hypothesized developmental needs of adolescents in healthy and pro-
social ways, in ways that increase awareness and compassion and that support
civil society, represents an important future direction for research and
practice on positive youth development. In the next section, we define
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
6
mindfulness and compassion as used here, describe some basic mindfulness and
compassion practices being used with adolescents, and describe some of the
kinds of skills and dispositions associated with doing such practices that
might support adolescents’ healthy identity development.
Figure 1. Proposed Stage-Environment Fit Theory of Adolescent Development
Defining Mindfulness and Compassion
Substantive, consensual definitions of what mindfulness is as a state, a
trait, a collection of mental attributes, or a process remain elusive.37,38
Young39 proposed a definition of mindfulness as an attentional skillset
comprised of concentration (the ability to focus on what you consider to be
relevant at a given time), sensory clarity (the ability to keep track of what
you’re actually experiencing in the moment), and equanimity (the ability to
allow sensory experiences to come and go without suppression or avoidance; or
over-identifying with experience as in personalization or attachment).
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
7
Though substantive definitions of compassion remain similarly elusive40,
compassion may be simply defined as the capacity to feel, and wish to
relieve, the suffering of others.41 Jinpa42 defined compassion as having four
components, including (1) cognitive (an awareness of suffering), (2)
emotional (an empathic concern in which one is moved by suffering), (3)
intentional (a wish to see suffering alleviated), and (4) behavioral (a
readiness to help to relieve suffering) ones. Although mindfulness is
sometimes described as the “art of conscious living”43 and compassion as the
“path of an open heart”44; these two qualities support one another and both
are often taught in secular trainings.37
A different approach to defining mindfulness and compassion that is more
in keeping with DCS is a functional one. The focus shifts to specific
practices used in trainings, and also if and how such practices function to
cultivate specific skills, dispositions, and related outcomes. For instance,
in adults, mindfulness practices (that involve focusing attention on the
breath and body, or moment-to-moment awareness of present experience) have
been linked to changes in attention and emotion regulation skills, clarity of
somatic and emotional awareness, and perspective on self.45 Such practices, in
part through these processes, have also been associated with reduced stress,
improved well-being and health46, enhanced academic performance47, and
prosocial behavior.48 Similarly, in adults, loving-kindness and compassion
practices that involve the mindful cultivation and extension of feelings of
kindness, love and forgiveness to self and to others have been linked to
changes in emotional awareness, emotion regulation, empathy, and feelings of
self-kindness and social-connectedness.49,50 In turn, such practices are linked
with reduced stress and improved health and well-being.51
In Table 1, we have organized a selection of mindfulness and compassion
research findings into a summary of skills and dispositions that training
cultivates in adults. These include self-regulatory (focused attention) and
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
8
social-cognitive skills (empathy), habits of self-reference and self-
evaluation (self-compassion), and motivational dispositions (generosity). We
chose to focus on this subset of skills and dispositions for four main
reasons: (a) they are centrally related to the core life-task of adolescence
– psychosocial identity development13; (b) they have known neural correlates
that evidence plasticity during adolescence12,52,53; (c)they are known to be
malleable in adults through even relatively short-term (4 hours to 8 weeks)
secular mindfulness and compassion trainings45,54; and (d) these skills and
dispositions appear to mediate between training (practice) and outcomes
(e.g., stress, well being, learning in adults.20 In the next section, we
describe how these expert skills and dispositions presented in Table 1 are
thought to be cultivated by four basic mindfulness and compassion practices
that are commonly used and researched in adult populations, and more and
more, in adolescent populations too.8
Table 1. Lines of Skill & Disposition Development Hypothetically Cultivated
as a Function of Mindfulness and Compassion Training
Domains of
Training
Novice
Habit/Disposition
Expert
Habit/Disposition
Self-regulation Mind-wandering Focused attention
Mindlessness Mindfulness
Emotional reactivity Emotion regulation
Social cognition Singular perspective Social perspective taking
Social-stereotyping Empathic curiosity
Social-judgment
Social fear/distrust
Kindness
Social connection/trust
Self-reference and
evaluation
Narrative self-reference
Self-judgment
Experiential self-reference
Self-compassion
Motivation Self-interest Generosity
In-group favoritism Altruism
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
9
Secular Mindfulness and Compassion Practices with Adolescents
Four basic practices are currently in use with adults and have bee adapted
for use with adolescents. We describe each practice in general terms, noting
specifically how each practice is hypothesized to cultivate the expert skills
and dispositions listed in Table 1. It is important to note that such
practices are usually delivered in the context of broader curricula and a
competent instructor, and both the practices and such broader contexts
theoretically affect their outcomes.37
Focused Attention Meditation. A foundational form of mindfulness and
compassion practice is called focused attention (FA) meditation. FA
meditation is characterized by a one-pointed focus on a chosen object of
meditation (e.g., the breath, external sound, an image) for a sustained
period of time; and the need to monitor attention to see if it is focused on
the object of meditation or not at any given moment in time.22 By practicing
one-pointedness and monitoring, one gradually cultivates focused attention
(rather than mind-wandering) and mindfulness of mental and physical states
(rather than mindlessness). By gently returning the mind to the object of
meditation when one becomes aware that it has wandered, and not reacting
emotionally or becoming self-critical, emotion regulation and self-compassion
(rather than emotional reactivity and self-criticism) are cultivated.54
Open Monitoring Meditation. A second form of mindfulness practice that
often is done after an individual is able to sustain the focus of attention
on a single object to some degree is called receptive or open-monitoring (OM)
meditation. OM meditation is characterized by the absence of attentional
focus on any particular object in favor of a momentary attentional focus on
whatever arises in one’s present experience (for example, sensations,
feelings, images, thoughts). In OM meditation, one adopts the perspective of
a non-attached observer, whose attention is directed to the here and now
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
10
(often using the breath as an anchor), and who can momentarily direct
attention towards any sensation, feeling, image or thought that arises, note
it, and then let it go and attend to the next moment.22
By having the practitioner attend in a choiceless and non-attached way to
the moment-to-moment flux of experience, OM meditation is thought to
cultivate emotional equanimity and regulation (rather than emotional
reactivity), mindful awareness (rather than mindlessness of bodily and mental
states), and a mode of experiential self-reference based on one’s body/mind-
here-and-now (rather than a mode of narrative self-reference based on one’s
concepts of self-there-and-then). By gently returning the mind to an open and
receptive stance in the present when it wanders, emotion regulation and self-
compassion (rather than emotional reactivity and self-criticism) are
cultivated.54 Several studies of FA and OM meditation practices with
adolescents have shown the acceptability of these approaches, and their
preliminary efficacy with regard to reducing emotional reactivity and
distress, and enhancing well-being.55–58
Loving Kindness Meditation. A third form of meditation that has been
adapted for secular contexts is called Loving Kindness (LK) meditation. The
cultivation of loving-kindness is based on the idea that all beings wish to
be happy.59 LK meditation has adapted for secular settings and involves
explicit instructions for visualization (imagining others), emotion
cultivation (love, forgiveness) and extension of loving and kind feelings
towards oneself, a good friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, all
four of the above equally, and eventually the entire universe.
A closely related practice is self-compassion (SC) meditation. Neff60
described this as an evaluative stance of gentleness and kindness toward
oneself (rather than criticism and judgment), especially in circumstances of
difficulty or setback. Self-compassion includes mindful awareness of
emotional experience and an understanding that all people experience
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
11
difficulty and suffering, and that this shared experience connects one to
(rather than isolate one from) others.50
Within LK and SC meditations, a number of skills may be developed. By
focusing on specific images of self and others, the practitioner is
strengthening focused attention. By cultivating positive feelings towards
self and social others, the practitioner is cultivating self-compassion
(rather than self-judgment) as well as social connection and kindness, and
empathy (rather than social fear/distrust and judgment). By cultivating love
and kindness for self and those near to the self, as well as those neutral
and far from the self, LK meditation aims to cultivate emotional equanimity
and regulation (rather than reactivity) and impartiality (rather than in-
group favoritism) towards other people. By focusing on those who have
transgressed the self, these meditations aim to cultivate social-perspective
taking, generosity and forgiveness in ways that include but transcend self-
interest. There are almost no published studies of examining the effects of
this meditation practice with adolescents.61
Mindful Movement (MM). Practices involving mindful movement (for example,
yoga or tai-chi) train attention through a focus on the breath and the whole
body. Similar to the other practices, mindful movement practices cultivate
focused attention, mindful awareness, and a mode of experiential self-
reference based on one’s body/mind-here-and-now (rather than a mode of
narrative self-reference based on one’s memories of self-there-and-then). By
gently returning the mind to the pose when one notices it wanders, these
practices also cultivate emotion regulation and self-compassion.54 Because the
focal object of attention in mindful movement practices is the body and
breath, the “transfer” of insights from the practice to action in the world
is concrete and may be particularly beneficial for youth (e.g., awareness of
states of tension and relaxation in the body and breath, attention to
posture). Mindful movement is a strong predictor of stress reduction in
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
12
adults, and several studies with adolescents have shown the acceptability of
these practices, as well as their preliminary efficacy with regard to
reducing emotional reactivity and distress, and cultivating well-being.62–64
In sum, these practices cultivate skills and dispositions that foster
tranquility of body and mind, awareness of self (body/mind) and others,
kindness and empathy, and well-being. Because the research on the use of
mindfulness and compassion training practices with adolescents is still in a
nascent state8,10, the final part of this paper is devoted to outlining a
future research agenda.
Mindfulness and Compassion Training During Adolescence: A Research Agenda
In this section, we discuss five areas for future research that link the
expert skills and dispositions in Table 1 to the developmental risks and
opportunities of adolescence. These include (1) enhancing self-regulation;
(2) enhancing experiential self-awareness; (3) promoting compassionate
evaluations of self and others; (4) promoting empathy and social-perspective-
taking; and (5) promoting pro-social motivation and behavior.
Enhancing Self-Regulation
Becoming an autonomous, self-regulating person is a key aspect of
adolescent identity development. Self-regulation is defined by Moilanen65 as
“the ability to flexibly activate, monitor, inhibit, persevere and/or adapt
one’s behavior, attention, emotions and cognitive strategies in response to
direction from internal cues, environmental stimuli and feedback from others,
in an attempt to attain personally-relevant goals (p. 835). Self-regulation
is critically dependent on the ability to focus and sustain attention66, and
to a suite of interrelated higher-order mental processes (e.g., cognitive
flexibility, working memory, inhibitory control or “cool executive function
(EF)”) necessary for the conscious maintenance, reflection upon, and
integration of information in the mind.18 Attention regulation and executive
function are critical to every aspect of adolescent behavior, including
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
13
higher-order learning in secondary school67, and the processes of self-
understanding and self-reflection in identity development.13 One key question
yet to be investigated is whether or not various forms of meditation might
enhance adolescents’ attention regulation and cool executive function.
Self-regulation is also related to “hot” EF or emotion regulation, defined
as conscious and intentional regulation of thought, emotion and action in the
context of motivationally salient, emotionally arousing stimuli18, and as the
modulation of the time course of emotional responding and recovery.68 A
prototypic example of emotion regulation is delay of gratification, in which
an individual, in the presence of a motivationally salient and immediate
reward, must regulate the pre-potent desire for that reward in order to
fulfill some longer-term valued goal or outcome. Emotion regulation is
critical to every aspect of adolescent behavior, including decision-making
and risk-taking, mental health, school learning and quality of peer and
parent relationships.25,69
Research has shown that (a) EF-related self-regulatory and self-reflective
abilities continue to develop in important ways during adolescence67; (b) such
developments are associated with the substantial structural and functional
plasticity in neural systems involving prefrontal and parietal cortices that
occurs during adolescence52,53; and (c) both the self-regulation of emotion
(“hot EF”) and of thought (“cool EF”) develop over the entire course of
adolescence.18
This prolonged development of emotion regulation across adolescence,
coupled with biologically determined remodeling of brain systems of emotion
in early adolescence (that eventuates in heightened emotional sensitivity to
rewards and threats17), have been implicated in the rise of mental health
problems like depression and addiction70, and increased risk taking behavior
occur during early and middle adolescence.16 Early adolescence is also a time
of significant life stress due to the many bio-psycho-social transitions
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
14
youth are undergoing. Self-consciousness, self-criticism, and concerns
regarding self-worth become more common following puberty as adolescents’
identity work proceeds.13 Thus, strengthening adolescents’ emotion regulation
skills to regulate stress and emotional reactivity to rewards (e.g., peer
approval) and threats (e.g. social rejection); as well as reducing social
hazards (e.g., handgun access), are both key directions for fostering
positive youth development.71 Programs that cultivate such skills during
adolescence may pay large educational and public health dividends.25
Mindfulness and compassion training programs may be one way to cultivate
emotion regulation.45 The focused attention, refined present-moment awareness
and non-judgmental acceptance that is cultivated by mindfulness training may
enhance individuals’ sensitivity to affective cues in their bodies and minds
that signal the need for emotion regulation.72 Additionally, refined awareness
may also enhance sensitivity to environmental cues likely to trigger
affective reactions and thus enhance positive forms of behavioral avoidance.
Research with adults documents that mindfulness training improves both the
attention and emotion regulation.45 A question for future research is this:
Can mindfulness training improve adolescents’ emotion regulation in contexts
of challenge and emotional arousal (rewards, threats) ranging from the
classroom, to the peer group, to the home with parents and siblings?
Enhancing Experiential Self-Awareness
Another important dimension of identity development in adolescence closely
related to self-regulation is experiential self-awareness, referring to
awareness of one’s moment-to-moment bodily (somatic/emotional) experience of
being-in-the-world. Research in a variety of fields has documented at least
two forms of self-referential awareness – one that is experiential in nature,
anchored in the body “here-and-now”; and another that is more
conceptual/narrative in nature, based in memories of “myself-there-then.” The
conceptual self is familiar to most; the experiential self is “before
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
15
language” and arises from exteroception (the processing of information from
the senses of the body); interoception (the processing of information from
the internal milieu, visceral organs, and vestibular, proprioceptive, and
kinesthesia systems); and basic feelings associated with this information.73
Often in experience, these two forms of self-reference are “fused.”
Becoming aware of and attending to the experiential mode of self-reference
may have relevance for academic learning and social relationships during
adolescence. The ability to stay present in one’s body is associated with
awareness of emotions that motivate behavior; whether or not aroused emotions
are likely to facilitate (e.g., challenge) or hinder (e.g., stress) the
pursuit of personally-relevant goals; and whether or not emotion regulation
is required.72 Staying with one’s moment-to-moment embodied experience may
also support the adoption of task-focused (rather than ego-focused)
motivational goals during academic learning in which attention is primarily
on the act of learning rather than on one’s (ego) narrative story about how
smart a student one is.10 Helping adolescents develop skills to stay focused
on present moment embodied experience may be particularly important during
adolescence when many youth become vulnerable to self-limiting, socialized
narratives about the fixed nature of their academic capabilities; or to
social-stereotypes about the qualities of other people and groups.74,75
Mindfulness and compassion training may promote optimal development by
shifting adolescents’ habitual mode of self-reference from the narrative to
the experiential. Farb and colleagues76 found that through training in
attention and mindful body and mind awareness, a de-coupling of these two
distinct forms of self-reference – ‘self’ in the present moment, and ‘self’
across mental time – can be accomplished. In essence, it is possible to be
“here and now” and not “in our heads” through training.54 The question of
whether mindfulness training can shift adolescents’ habitual mode of self-
reference more toward the experiential, especially in high stress situations
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
16
where narrative beliefs that affect behavior are automatically activated
(e.g., school tests), is another one worthy of future research.
Promoting Compassionate Evaluations of Self and Others
The development of a disposition to evaluate oneself and others with
kindness and compassion is another dimension of healthy adolescent identity
development. Following puberty, research shows that feelings of sexual and
social interest, self-consciousness regarding one’s body and behavior, and
anxieties concerning one’s peer and parents, self-worth, and “authentic” self
all increase.13 With increased self-reflective and social-perspective taking
capacities18,77, the period after puberty is also a time when making complex
evaluations of the attributes of self and others (positive-neutral-negative)
become important aspects of self/identity and social development. For
instance, the self-evaluation of personal attributes (e.g., “my positive
social competence”) is a key underpinning of self-worth; and the self-
evaluation of others’ attributes is a key aspect of peer selection and
subsequent peer influence during this period.13
Thus, the conjunction of puberty, the beginning of the self-reflective
quest for identity, and a strong social orientation, underlies adolescents
increased tendency to think about and evaluate themselves and others. By
holding an image of self or other in mind (e.g., working memory), comparing
and evaluating (e.g., mental flexibility) and reflecting (e.g., monitor) on
such images, adolescents’ gradually integrate collections of perceptual
attributes regarding self and others into increasingly abstract,
cultural/linguistic labels, categories and attributes – for instance
“smart/dumb,” “kind/mean,” or “friend/foe.” The result is the development of
abstract conceptual belief systems regarding the (relatively fixed) positive
and negative attributes of oneself, and other people.13
The process of constructing abstract conceptions of self and others is
powerful. Over time, self-attributes are increasingly organized by social
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
17
roles (friends, sibling), domains (school, sports), as by temporal, thematic
and causal coherence in the form of a life-story.78,79 At the same time, this
process also leads to new vulnerabilities. In early adolescence, for
instance, contradictions in newly-ascribed, abstract self-attributes (e.g.,
“I’m nice to friends, but mean to my sister”); and in self- vs. other-
ascribed self-attributes (e.g., “I think I’m nice but my sister says I’m
mean”) give rise to reflections and anxieties concerning one’s “authentic and
false selves”.13 The process of developing more abstract beliefs about self
and others can also lead to reductive distortions and reifications regarding
self (e.g., “I will never be any good”) and others (e.g., “He will never be a
good person”). Increases in depressive symptoms, among early adolescent
girls, for instance, are associated with negative self-evaluative beliefs
(e.g., poor body image or sense of self as unworthy) that are viewed as
stable or fixed (“ugly” or “unlovable”).13
Given these opportunities and vulnerabilities, and developmental
plasticity in the psychological13 and correlated neural systems associated
with self-reflection and social perspective taking on the one hand18, and
self- and social-evaluation on the other80,81, enrichment activities that
target such processes with the aim of cultivating kind and compassionate,
rather than critical and fearful styles of evaluating self and others, seem
important during adolescence.75
Mindfulness and compassion practices may assist in this regard by
cultivated focused attention, emotion regulation, and present-centered
experiential self-awareness (for example, FA, OM & MM meditations); and by
enhancing the construct accessibility of images of oneself and others that
are infused with feelings of love, kindness, and compassion (LK and SC
meditations82). By cultivating familiarity with loving images over time
through meditation, such images hypothetically become highly accessible in
memory and are therefore more likely to be activated and be applied
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
18
automatically in everyday life. In one randomized control trial, for
instance, just a few minutes of LK meditation was found to increase feelings
of implicit and explicit social connection towards novel other people.49
Research on whether or not such practices can induce lasting changes in
adolescents’ self/other evaluations has yet to be conducted.
Promoting Empathy and Social Perspective Taking
Learning to attend to others with empathic curiosity and to take others
perspectives is a key part of adolescents’ development of identity and
intimacy.14 Blakemore and Mills15 propose that changes during adolescence in
areas of the brain associated with social cognition lead to heightened
sensitivity to sociocultural signals in the environment, particularly
acceptance by peers, fear of social rejection, and the intentions, beliefs
and desires of other people. Social cognition - defined as the human ability
to perceive, comprehend, and use social information in our interactions with
others – encompasses both an emotion-centered empathy system, and a
cognition-centered social-perspective taking (SPT) system.83 Research shows
that the SPT system, as well as its interrelationship with temperament and
the empathy system, undergoes significant developmental transformation during
adolescence.52,77 Specifically, adolescents are learning to integrate “bottom-
up” somatic and emotional information from the empathy system with “top-down”
acquired knowledge and contextual information from the SPT system to frame
appropriate social interactions with other people. Thus, strengthening the
interconnection between these systems through systematic training might
increase adolescents’ social-cognitive skills.
Compassion training in adults, for instance, has been linked to changes
prosocial behavior and the neural correlates of emotional awareness, empathy
and SPT.84–86 Condon and colleagues48 found that emerging adults who received
eight weeks of mindfulness training were more likely to behaviorally respond
to relieve the suffering of another person compared to controls. These
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
19
studies suggest that training-induced plasticity in social cognition, as well
as in the behavioral consequences of such changes, is possible with
relatively short-term training in adults. Scientific investigations of these
issues with youth have yet to be done.
Promoting Prosocial Motivation and Behavior
Prosocial motivation and behavior are key “self-transcending” components
of a healthy identity.6 Prosocial motivation has been defined as the expressed
wish to help others in need87; whereas prosocial behavior can be defined as
“behavior that benefits other people”(p.2).88 Research shows that prosocial
behavior requires empathy, emotion regulation89, and an intention to go beyond
the self to contribute to others.28 Frankl90 described the value of self-
transcendent motivations for being fully human in this way:
…being human always points, and is directed, to something, or
someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfill or another
human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself [sic] – by
giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more
human he is and the more he actualizes himself...self-actualization is
possible only as a side effect of self-transcendence. (p. 115).
Cultivating self-transcendent, prosocial motivation and behavior as a
valued road to happiness among adolescents is another hypothesized outcome of
mindfulness and compassion training.58 Whether or not mindfulness and
compassion training for adolescents can cultivate motivational dispositions
like kindness, generosity and altruism, and behaviors that follow, remain
open questions at this time.
Summary
In this article, we proposed that adolescence brings with it unique needs
for wisdom, mattering, and self-transcendence. Furthermore, we proposed that
mindfulness and compassion training are among the many healthy ways that
family, school, and community settings can support adolescents in fulfilling
Mindfulness and Compassion in Adolescence
20
these needs during a time when identity and existence become “a problem and a
question,” and when youth are rendered vulnerable to fulfilling their
identity needs in unhealthy ways. We briefly introduced Contemplative
Developmental Science (DCS) as a new, inter-disciplinary study devoted to
such topics. Adopting a DCS perspective, we (a) described mindfulness and
compassion substantively and in terms of specific practices and outcomes like
health, wellbeing and learning; (b) explained some of the psychological
skills and dispositions that are developed by mindfulness and compassion
training, and through which, such trainings are thought to have their
salutary effects on outcomes, and (c) generated a research agenda on how
adolescents’ identity development might be optimized through the introduction
of mindfulness and compassion training. We did not have time to discuss the
importance of offering such trainings to the parents, teachers and other
caregivers who help raise adolescents, something we believe is important.20 We
look forward to results of future research on the kinds of questions we laid
out here. This work will bear on the broader issue of whether or not
mindfulness and compassion trainings can contribute to the formation of
adolescent identities that transcend but include self-interests alongside the
interests of others; eschew pseudo-speciation in favor of love of humanity as
a whole; and lead in the directions of being fully human in a global age.
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