Objectives

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a school-based mindfulness programme (SBMP), “Paws b”, on empathy and prosocial behaviour among children aged 7 to 10 years in a school setting.

Method

This multi-informant design, randomised controlled trial compared an intervention group to a wait-list control group, involving 133 children aged 7- to 10 years from 10 classrooms. Outcome measures were taken at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up and included self-reports of mindfulness and empathy, a sharing task, teacher and peer reports of prosocial behaviours, and sociometry measures.

Results

Children in the intervention group were voted as significantly more (a) prosocial by teachers F(1, 127) = 7.35, p = 0.008, η² = 0.055, (b) helpful by peers, F(1, 127) = 9.369, p < 0.003, η² = 0.069, (c) popular by peers, F(1, 127) = 4.90, p = 0.028, η² = 0.037, and (d) showed more reciprocal relationships, t(8) = 2.518, p = 0.036, compared to the wait-list control group. The intervention did not have an effect on mindfulness scores, empathy scores (affective, cognitive, or intention to comfort), or sharing task scores.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that, for 7–10-year-olds, the SBMP, Paws b, delivered by a mindfulness teacher, can increase some aspects of prosociality, as judged by peers and teachers, but has no effect on self-assessed empathy.

Preregistration

This study was preregistered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/vm6tp/) on 31.10.2022.

中文翻译：

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学校正念计划 (Paws b) 对同理心和亲社会行为的影响：随机对照试验

目标

本研究的目的是探讨学校正念计划 (SBMP)“Paws b”对学校环境中 7 至 10 岁儿童的同理心和亲社会行为的影响。

方法

这项多信息设计、随机对照试验将干预组与等候名单对照组进行了比较，涉及来自 10 个教室的 133 名 7 至 10 岁儿童。结果测量是在干预前、干预后和 3 个月的随访中进行的，包括正念和同理心的自我报告、分享任务、教师和同伴的亲社会行为报告以及社会测量测量。

结果

干预组中的儿童被认为 (a) 被教师认为更亲社会，F (1, 127) = 7.35，p  = 0.008，η ²  = 0.055，(b) 被同伴认为更乐于助人，F (1, 127) = 9.369，p  < 0.003, η ²  = 0.069, (c) 受到同行欢迎, F (1, 127) = 4.90, p  = 0.028, η ²  = 0.037, (d) 表现出更多的互惠关系, t (8) = 2.518, 与等待名单对照组相比，p = 0.036。干预对正念得分、同理心得分（情感、认知或安慰意图）或分享任务得分没有影响。

结论

研究结果表明，对于 7-10 岁的孩子，由正念老师讲授的 SBMP、Paws b 可以增强亲社会性的某些方面（根据同龄人和老师的判断），但对自我评估的同理心没有影响。

预登记

这项研究已于 2022 年 10 月 31 日在开放科学框架 (https://osf.io/vm6tp/) 上进行预注册。