If your mom can't teach you to be nice ... maybe science can!
Researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are setting up an experiment to see if they can "train" people to be nicer to each other:
First, the team had the group try the Buddhist technique of compassion meditation: thinking about a time someone was suffering, then chanting, "May you be free from suffering. May you have joy and ease." The people focused on a loved one, like a friend or family member, then themselves, then a stranger, and finally a "difficult person" in their lives. (If only they had an estranged family member they strongly disliked; they could knock out three at a time.) A control group, meanwhile, got cognitive reappraisal training, a technique for turning negative thoughts positive. Both the groups were trained for 30 minutes a day over the internet for two weeks.
So how do you measure compassion?
The researchers here used a game. Two anonymous players--one the "Dictator" and one the "Victim"--shared a pool of $10. The dictator decided how much money the victim got. As dictators are wont to do, the victim didn't get much: only $1 out of the $10. The person playing then had to decide how much of his or her $5 to give to the victim. The Buddhist-meditators were more likely to share more of the dough.
The researchers started the study with fMRI scans and performed them again on both groups after the training. The groups were shown images of suffering while in the machine, like a crying child or a burn victim. They found that the people with meditation training had increased activity in the inferior parietal cortex (that's not necessarily a perfect indicator of empathy, but it suggests something's going on, at least).
Colin Lechler of PopSci has the post: Link (Image: The Jerk, starring the inimitable Steve Martin)
Comments (0)
I love my child. I will love him no matter what he does in life. I have loved him since I first found out I was pregnant.
Sometimes I don't like his behavior very much though. When he messes up his room with the contents of his diaper (he's 20 months old) I really don't like it. I don't approve of behavior like that. But does that make me love him any less?
HELL NO!
Methinks people who write articles like this need to go out and buy a dictionary before they make themselves look like complete idiots.
My children are going to wonder about me when they get older, ha!
-Good child effort >>> yeilds >>> Positive attention.
-Maladaptive effort >>> yeilds >>> Negative attention.
Most people would call this FULL TIME parenting.
Warning to all: Alfie Cohn shows up in educational circles often. Most people with any knowledge of educational research or child psychology dismiss him as the poorly-grounded sensationalist he is... -Steve
Remember, if you want us to read stuff about mothers, show a picture with some cleavage.
Try applying this feel-good garbage to toilet training. You kinda hafta negatively react to your kid crapping on the coffee table...