Mindfulness and compassion training in adolescence: A developmental contemplative science...

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,


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


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.


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


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).


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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.

References

1. Paz, O. (1985). The labyrinth of solitude: Life and thought in Mexico.

New York, NY: Grove Press, Inc.

2. Roeser, R. W., & Eccles, J. S. (2014). School and the mental health of

children and adolescents: A developmental systems approach. In M. Lewis &

K. Rudolph (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (3rd ed.).

New York, NY: Springer.


21

3. Eccles., J. S. & Roeser, R. W. (2014). School and community influences on

human development. In M. H. Boorstein & M. E. Lamb (Eds.), Developmental

Psychology: An Advanced Textbook (7th ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

4. Greenberg, M. T., Weissberg, R. P., O'Brien, M. U., Zins, J. E.,

Fredericks, L., & Resnik, H. (2003). Enhancing school-based prevention

and youth development through coordinated social, emotional, and academic

learning. American Psychologist, 58, 466-474.

5. Larson, R., Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J.A. (2004). Features of positive

developmental settings. The Prevention Researcher, 11, 8-13.

6. Lerner, R. M., Dowling, E. M., & Anderson, P. M. (2003). Positive youth

development: Thriving as the basis of personhood and civil society.

Applied Developmental Science, 7, 172-180.

7. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY: Norton.

8. Greenberg, M. T., & Harris, A. R. (2012). Nurturing mindfulness in

children and youth: Current state of research. Child Development

Perspectives, 6, 161–166.

9. Meiklejohn, J., Phillips, C., Freedman, M. L., Griffin, M. L., Biegel,

G., Roach, A., . . . Saltzman, A. (2012). Integrating mindfulness

training into K-12 education: fostering the resilience of teachers and

students. Mindfulness, 3, 291-307.

10. Roeser, R. W., & Peck, S. C. (2009). An education in awareness: Self,

motivation, and self- regulated learning in contemplative perspective.

Educational Psychologist, 44, 119-136.

11. Magen, Z. (1998). Exploring adolescent happiness: Commitment, purpose,

and fulfillment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

12. Giedd, J. N. (2008). The teen brain: Insights from neuroimaging.

Journal of Adolescent Health, 42, 335-343.

13. Harter, S. (1999). The construction of self: A developmental

perspective. New York, NY: Guilford Press.


22

14. Selman, R. L. (2003). The promotion of social awareness: Powerful

lessons from the partnership of developmental theory and classroom

practice. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

15. Blakemore, S. J., & Mills, K. L. (2013). Is adolescence a sensitive

period for sociocultural processing? Annual Review of Psychology, 65,

187-207.

16. Dahl, R. E. (2004). Adolescent brain development: A period of

vulnerabilities and opportunities. Keynote address. Annals of the New

York Academy of Sciences, 1021(1), 1-22.

17. Ernst, M., Pine, D. S., & Hardin, M. (2006). Triadic model of the

neurobiology of motivated behavior in adolescence. Psychological

Medicine, 36(3), 299-312.

18. Zelazo, P. D., & Carlson, S. M. (2012). Hot and cool executive function

in childhood and adolescence: Development and plasticity. Child

Development Perspectives, 6, 354–360.

19. Roeser, R. W. & Zelazo, P. D. R. (2012). Contemplative science,

education and child development: Introduction to the special section.

Child Development Perspectives, 6, 143-145.

20. Mind and Life Education Research Network (MLERN) (2012). Contemplative

practices and mental training: Prospects for American education. Child

Development Perspectives, 6, 146–153.

21. Ericsson, K. A., & Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance: Its

structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, 49(8), 725-747.

22. Lutz, A., Dunne, J .D., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Meditation and the

neuroscience of consciousness: An introduction. In P.D. Zelazo, M.

Moscovitch, & E. Thompson (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of

Consciousness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

23. Davidson, R. J., & Lutz, A. (2008). Buddha's brain: Neuroplasticity and

meditation. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 25(1), 176-174.


23

24. Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive

function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science, 333, 959-

964.

25. Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R.J.,

Harrington, H., . . . Caspi, A. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-

control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences, 108, 2693–2698.

26. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Motivation, personality, and

development within embedded social contexts: An overview of self-

determination theory. The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, 85-107.

27. Kessler, R. (2000). The soul of education: Helping students find

connection, compassion and character at school. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

28. Damon, W. (2009). The path to purpose: How young people find their

calling in life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

29. Hart, T. (2004). Opening the contemplative mind in the classroom.

Journal of Transformative Education, 2, 28-46.

30. Lantieri, L. (Ed.). (2002). Schools with spirit: Nurturing the inner

lives of children and teachers. New York, NY: Beacon Press.

31. Erikson, E. H. (1974). Dimensions of a new identity: The 1973 Jefferson

Lectures in the humanities. Belmont, CA: WW Norton and Company.

32. Arnett, J. J. (2002). The psychology of globalization. American

Psychologist, 57, 774-783.

33. Wessells, M. (2006). Child soldiers: From violence to protection.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

34. Wilson, H. W., & Widom, C. S. (2010). The role of youth problem

behaviors in the path from child abuse and neglect to prostitution: a

prospective examination. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 20, 210-236.


24

35. Racz, S. J., McMahon, R. J., & Luthar, S. S. (2011). Risky behavior in

affluent youth: Examining the co-occurrence and consequences of multiple

problem behaviors. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 20, 120-128.

36. Lankford, A., & Hakim, N. (2011). From Columbine to Palestine: A

comparative analysis of rampage shooters in the United States and

volunteer suicide bombers in the Middle East. Aggression & Violent

Behavior, 16, 98-107.

37. Cullen, M. (2011). Mindfulness-based interventions: An emerging

phenomenon. Mindfulness, 2(3), 186-193.

38. Williams, J. M. G., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2011). Mindfulness: diverse

perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the

intersection of science and dharma. Contemporary Buddhism, 12, 1-18.

39. Young, S. (2011). Five ways to know yourself: An introduction to basic

mindfulness. Unpublished Manuscript, Burlington, VT.

40. Goetz, J. L., Keltner, D., & Simon-Thomas, E. (2010). Compassion: an

evolutionary analysis and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 136,

351-374.

41. Miller, J. P. (2006). Educating for wisdom and compassion: Creating

conditions for timeless learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

42. Jinpa, G.T. (2010). Compassion cultivation training (CCT): Instructor’s

manual (unpublished).

43. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness

meditation in everyday life. New York, NY: Hyperion.

44. Lama, D. (2001). An open heart: Practicing compassion in everyday

life. New York, NY: Little Brown.

45. Hölzel, B. K., Lazar, S. W., Gard, T., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Vago, D.

R., & Ott, U. (2011). How does mindfulness meditation work? Proposing

mechanisms of action from a conceptual and neural perspective.

Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 537-559.


25

46. Grossmann, K. E., Grossmann, K., & Waters, E. (Eds.). (2006).

Attachment from infancy to adulthood: The major longitudinal studies. New

York, NY: Guilford Press.

47. Mrazek, M. D., Franklin, M. S., Phillips, D. T., Baird, B., & Schooler,

J. W. (2013). Mindfulness training improves working memory capacity and

GRE performance while reducing mind wandering. Psychological Science, 24,

776-781.

48. Condon, P., Desbordes, G., Miller, W. B., & DeSteno, D.

(2013). Meditation increases compassionate responses to

suffering. Psychological Science, 24, 2125-2127.

49. Hutcherson, C. A., Seppala, E. M., & Gross, J. J. (2008). Loving-

kindness meditation increases social connectedness. Emotion, 8, 720-724.

50. Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized

controlled trial of the mindful self‐compassion program. Journal of

Clinical Psychology, 69, 28-44.

51. Hofmann, S. G., Grossman, P., & Hinton, D. E. (2011). Loving-kindness

and compassion meditation: Potential for psychological interventions.

Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 1126-1132.

52. Blakemore, S. J. (2008). The social brain in adolescence. Nature

Reviews Neuroscience, 9(4), 267-277.

53. Carlson, S. M., Zelazo, P. D., & Faja, S. (2013). Executive function.

In P.D. Zelazo (Ed.), Handbook of Developmental Psychology (pp. 706-742).

New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

54. Vago, D. R., & Silbersweig, D. A. (2012). Self-awareness, self-

regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): A framework for understanding

the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness. Frontiers in Human

Neuroscience, 6, 1-30.

55. Biegel, G. M., Brown, K. W., Shapiro, S. L., & Schubert, C. M. (2009).

Mindfulness-based stress reduction for the treatment of adolescent


26

psychiatric outpatients: A randomized clinical trial. Journal of

Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 77(5), 855-866.2

56. Broderick, P. C., & Metz, S. (2009). Learning to breathe: Pilot trial

of a mindfulness curriculum for adolescents. Advances in School Mental

Health Promotion, 2, 35-46.

57. Raes, F., Griffith, J. W., Van der Gucht, K., & Williams, J. M. G.

(2013). School-based prevention and reduction of depression in

adolescents: A cluster-randomized control trial of a mindfulness group

program. Mindfulness, 1-10.

58. Schonert-Reichl, K. A., & Lawlor, M. S. (2010). The effects of a

mindfulness-based education program on pre- and early adolescents’

wellbeing and social and emotional competence. Mindfulness, 1, 137-151.

59. Salzberg, S., & Bush, M. (2001). Voices of insight. Ithaca, NY:

Shambhala Publications.

60. Neff, K. D. (2003). The development and validation of a scale to

measure self-compassion. Self and Identity, 2, 223–250.

61. Pace, T. W., Negi, L.T., Dodson-Lavelle, B., Ozawa-de Silva, B., Reddy,

S. D., Cole, S.P., . . . Raison, C.L. (2012). Engagement with

cognitively-based compassion training is associated with reduced salivary

C-reactive protein from before to after training in foster care program

adolescents. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 1-6.

62. Khalsa, S. B., Hickey-Schultz, L., Cohen, D., Steiner, N., & Cope, S.

(2012). Evaluation of the mental health benefits of yoga in a secondary

school: A preliminary randomized controlled trial. Journal of Behavioral

Health Services and Research, 39, 80-90.

63. Mendelson, T., Greenberg, M. T., Dariotis, J., Gould, L. F., Rhoades,

B., & Leaf, P. J. (2010). Feasibility and preliminary outcomes of a

school-based mindfulness intervention for urban youth. Journal of

Abnormal Child Psychology, 38, 985-994.


27

64. Noggle, J. J., Steiner, N. J., Minami, T., & Khalsa, S. B. S. (2012).

Benefits of yoga for psychosocial well-being in a US high school

curriculum: A preliminary randomized controlled trial. Journal of

Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 33, 193-201.

65. Moilanen, K. L. (2007). The adolescent self-regulatory inventory: The

development and validation of a questionnaire of short-term and long-term

self-regulation. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36(6), 835-848.

66. Rothbart, M. K., Posner, M. I., & Kieras, J. (2006). Temperament,

attention, and the development of self-regulation. In K. McCartney & D.

Phillips (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of early childhood development (pp.

338–357). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

67. Kuhn, D. (2000). Metacognitive development. Current Directions in

Psychological Science, 9, 178-181.

68. Davidson, R. J. (2002). Anxiety and affective style: Role of prefrontal

cortex and amygdala. Biological Psychiatry, 51, 68-80.

69. Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent

cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of

gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental

Psychology, 26, 978-986

70. Giedd, J. N., Keshavan, M., & Paus, T. (2008). Why do many psychiatric

disorders emerge during adolescence? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9, 947.

71. Romeo, R. D. (2010). Adolescence: a central event in shaping stress

reactivity. Developmental Psychobiology, 52, 244-253.

72. Teper, R., Segal, Z. V., & Inzlicht, M. (2013). Inside the mindful

mind: How mindfulness enhances emotion regulation through improvements in

executive control. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1-6.

73. Craig, A. D. (2009). Emotional moments across time: a possible neural

basis for time perception in the anterior insula. Philosophical

Transactions of the Royal Society, 364, 1933-1942.


28

74. Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit

theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent

transition: a longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development,

78, 246-263.

75. Yeager, D. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). An implicit

theories of personality intervention reduces adolescent aggression in

response to victimization and exclusion. Child Development, 84, 970-984.

76. Farb, N. A., Segal, Z. V., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., Fatima,

Z., & Anderson, A. K. (2007). Attending to the present: mindfulness

meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. Social

Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 313-322.

77. Decety, J., & Michalska, K. J. (2010). Neurodevelopmental changes in

the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood.

Developmental Science, 13, 886-899.

78. Habermas, T., & Bluck, S. (2000). Getting a life: The emergence of the

life story in adolescence. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 748-769.

79. Harter, S., Bresnick, S., Bouchey, H. A., & Whitesell, N. R. (1997).

The development of multiple role-related selves during adolescence.

Development and Psychopathology, 9(4), 835-853.

80. Legrand, D., & Ruby, P. (2009). What is self-specific? Theoretical

investigation and critical review of neuroimaging results. Psychological

Review, 116, 252-282.

81. Northoff, G., & Panksepp, J. (2008). The trans-species concept of self

and the subcortical–cortical midline system. Trends in Cognitive

Sciences, 12, 259-264.

82. Jazaieri, H., McGonigal, K., Jinpa, T., Doty, J. R., Gross, J. J., &

Goldin, P. R. (2013). A randomized controlled trial of compassion

cultivation training: Effects on mindfulness, affect, and emotion

regulation. Motivation and Emotion, 1-13.


29

83. Singer, T. (2006). The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind

reading: Review of literature and implications for future research.

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 30, 855-863.

84. Leiberg S., Klimecki O., Singer T. (2011). Short-term compassion

training increases prosocial behavior in a newly developed prosocial

game. PLoS ONE, 6, 1-10.

85. Lutz, A., Brefczynski-Lewis, J., Johnstone, T., & Davidson, R .J.

(2008). Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion

meditation: Effects of meditative expertise. PLoS ONE, 3(3), 1-10.

86. Weng, H. Y., Fox, A. S., Shackman, A. J., Stodola, D. E., Caldwell, J.

Z., Olson, M. C., . . . Davidson, R. J. (2013). Compassion training

alters altruism and neural responses to suffering. Psychological Science,

24(7), 1171-1180.

87. Batson, C. D., Ahmad, N., Yin, J., Bedell, S. J., Johnson, J. W., &

Templin, C. M. (1999). Two threats to the common good: Self-interested

egoism and empathy-induced altruism. Personality and Social Psychology

Bulletin, 25, 3-16.

88. Staub, E. (1979). Positive social behavior and morality: Socialization

and development (Vol. 2). San Diego: Academic Press.

89. Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., & Spinrad, T. L. (2006). Prosocial

development. In N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), W. Damon, & R.M. Lerner (Series

Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional, and personality

development (6th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 646-718). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

90. Frankl, V. (1962). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to

logotherapy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Mindfulness and compassion training in adolescence: A developmental contemplative science...

Documents

Transcript of Mindfulness and compassion training in adolescence: A developmental contemplative science...