What Research Suggests About Meditation, Compassion, and Helping Others

Research details

The review combined 26 randomized controlled trials involving 1,714 participants.

Meditation groups showed small-to-medium improvements in self-reported empathy, compassion, and related emotions.

Studies also found more observable prosocial behavior, including helping others.

Many studies used compassion or loving-kindness meditation for about 8–12 weeks.

The evidence supported benefits over active controls, but results varied across studies.

Teaser

A review of 26 randomized trials found that meditation was linked with small-to-medium improvements in empathy, compassion, related emotions, and helpful behavior.

Plain Summary

A systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2018 examined whether meditation can strengthen positive social feelings and helpful actions. Researchers combined the results of 26 randomized controlled trials involving 1,714 people. This type of review can provide a broader picture than a single study, although the quality and results of the individual studies can still vary.

Most participants were healthy adults. Many of the studies examined compassion or loving-kindness meditation, usually practiced over about 8 to 12 weeks. This matters because the findings should not automatically be treated as proof that every form of meditation has the same effects. The paper used the broader word “meditation,” while noting that these particular practices were common among the included studies.

Compared with control groups, people in the meditation groups showed small-to-medium improvements in self-reported empathy, compassion, and related positive emotions. In everyday terms, participants generally reported feeling more able to understand or care about others. The review also found improvements in observable prosocial behavior, such as helping someone.

The researchers found support for these benefits even when meditation was compared with active control conditions. An active control is a comparison activity designed to account for some of the attention or participation involved in joining a study, rather than simply comparing meditation with no activity. This strengthens the findings, but the authors also noted that the evidence varied across studies.

Because the review brought together randomized trials, it offers evidence that meditation may contribute to these changes. Still, the results do not mean that meditation will affect everyone in the same way, or that it guarantees greater compassion or helpfulness. The findings also do not show that meditation alone explains every change in a person’s social feelings or behavior. They suggest a possible, modest benefit, particularly in studies involving compassion- or loving-kindness-based practices, rather than a promise of a fixed outcome.

Practical Takeaway

Taken together, this research suggests that regular meditation may modestly support empathy, compassion, and helpful behavior. The strongest evidence in this review came largely from studies of compassion- and loving-kindness-based practices lasting around 8 to 12 weeks. These findings are encouraging, but they are not a guarantee and should not be extended automatically to every meditation method. The studies also differed in their results, so meditation is best understood as one possible support for developing caring feelings and actions—not as a cure or a certain way to change how someone behaves.