You’re in a waiting room, seated next to two other people. There are only three chairs. A woman enters on crutches, a medical boot on one leg. She winces, checks her phone, sighs uncomfortably, and leans against the wall. Neither of the other people responds.
Do you get up and offer her your seat?
You’ll be much more likely to if you meditate, according to a new study published in Psychological Science.
In the study, Paul Condon and Dave DeSteno of Northeastern University and Gaelle Desbordes of Massachusetts General Hospital assigned people with little or no meditation experience to one of two eight-week meditation classes, or put them on a wait list for a class. One class was a mindfulness meditation class geared toward focusing and calming the mind. The other covered similar terrain but also discussed compassion and suffering.
