Bridging the empathy gap: Effects of brief mindfulness training on helping outgroup members in need

Witnessing others in need can be felt similarly to experiencing it oneself (empathy) and motivates assistance of those in need (prosocial action). It is well-documented that empathy can occur automatically, but when those in need are not members of a social ingroup, empathy and prosocial action are undermined. One major ingroup—outgroup division in American and in other countries is based on race. Although most condemn racial discrimination, empathy and prosocial action are often lower, however unintentionally, in interracial contexts. In light of this empathy gap, it is important to identify psychological factors that could bolster empathy and prosocial action toward racial outgroup members in need. This dissertation asked whether mindfulness training – cultivating present-centered, receptive attention to one’s ongoing experiences –increases social sensitivity toward racial outgroup members, and is based on pilot research indicating that a brief mindfulness induction increased empathy and prosocial action in such contexts. Healthy, self-identifying White women were randomized to either a brief (4-day) mindfulness training or a structurally-equivalent sham mindfulness training. Pre-post electroencephalographic measures of empathy toward video stimuli of outgroup members expressing sadness was assessed via prefrontal alpha frequency oscillations (i.e., frontal alpha asymmetry). Pre-post scenario-based spontaneous prosocial action toward Black individuals in need, and pre-post 14-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of empathy and prosocial action toward Black individuals (and other races) were conducted. Mindfulness training was expected to increase EEG- and EMA-based empathy toward Black individuals in need, as well as increase prosocial action toward such individuals in scenario and daily life (EMA) contexts. Opposite of what was hypothesized, MT reduced post-intervention empathic simulation, relative to ST, as measured by frontal alpha asymmetry. Consistent with hypotheses, however, MT increased empathic concern for outgroup members expressing sadness during video stimuli observation, and increased post-intervention scenario-based prosocial action. However, the hypothesis that MT would predict increases in pre- to post-intervention daily EMA-based prosocial action was not supported. Providing somewhat convergent evidence, trait mindfulness predicted more frequent pre-intervention scenario-based and daily prosocial action toward outgroup members; trait mindfulness was not related to pre-intervention video-based EEG and self-reported empathy outcomes. Together these results suggest that mindfulness can enhance some indicators or empathy and prosocial behavior in interracial contexts. Mechanisms and implications of the findings are discussed

Genome-wide association study for calving performance using high-density genotypes in dairy and beef cattle

peer-reviewedBackground Calving difficulty and perinatal mortality are prevalent in modern-day cattle production systems. It is well-established that there is a genetic component to both traits, yet little is known about their underlying genomic architecture, particularly in beef breeds. Therefore, we performed a genome-wide association study using high-density genotypes to elucidate the genomic architecture of these traits and to identify regions of the bovine genome associated with them. Results Genomic regions associated with calving difficulty (direct and maternal) and perinatal mortality were detected using two statistical approaches: (1) single-SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) regression and (2) a Bayesian approach. Data included high-density genotypes on 770 Holstein-Friesian, 927 Charolais and 963 Limousin bulls. Several novel or previously identified genomic regions were detected but associations differed by breed. For example, two genomic associations, one each on chromosomes 18 and 2 explained 2.49 % and 3.13 % of the genetic variance in direct calving difficulty in the Holstein-Friesian and Charolais populations, respectively. Imputed Holstein-Friesian sequence data was used to refine the genomic regions responsible for significant associations. Several candidate genes on chromosome 18 were identified and four highly significant missense variants were detected within three of these genes (SIGLEC12, CTU1, and ZNF615). Nevertheless, only CTU1 contained a missense variant with a putative impact on direct calving difficulty based on SIFT (0.06) and Polyphen (0.95) scores. Using imputed sequence data, we refined a genomic region on chromosome 4 associated with maternal calving difficulty in the Holstein-Friesian population and found the strongest association with an intronic variant in the PCLO gene. A meta-analysis was performed across the three breeds for each calving performance trait to identify common variants associated with these traits in the three breeds. Our results suggest that a portion of the genetic variation in calving performance is common to all three breeds. Conclusion The genomic architecture of calving performance is complex and mainly influenced by many polymorphisms of small effect. We identified several associations of moderate effect size but the majority were breed-specific, indicating that breed-specific alleles exist for calving performance or that the linkage phase between genotyped allele and causal mutation varies between breeds

Abating Prejudice With Presence: Dispositional Mindfulness Increases Interracial Helping Behavior

Helping behavior is less frequently shown toward members of social out-groups (Cikra, Bruneau, & Saxe, 2011). Race defines a common source of social division in America and other countries, and although most condemn racial discrimination, helping is undermined in interracial interactions (Saucier, Miller, & Doucet, 2005). Recent theory suggests that mindfulness, a receptive attention to one’s present experience, can attenuate the conceptual boundaries that typically separate and distance oneself from others (Trautwein, Schmidt, & Naranjo, 2014). We designed an experiment to examine whether dispositional mindfulness would be associated with increased helping behavior in interracial contexts. Self-identifying White participants (N = 139) witnessed a confederate in need of help while waiting to participate in a study, and experimenters observed whether participants helped them or not; self-identifying White or Black confederates were randomly assigned to each experimental session. Three-block sequential logistic regression models were constructed to identify predictors of same-race and interracial helping. Overall, dispositional mindfulness, agreeableness, and lower racial prejudice predicted greater helping behavior in same-race interactions (all ps \u3c 0.05). Interestingly, mindfulness moderated the help-reducing effects of racial prejudice in the interracial interactions (p \u3c 0.05). More specifically, high mindfulness was associated with increased helping behavior among those high in racial prejudice. This correlational evidence is consistent with mindfulness theory, which suggests deploying mindful attention dampens psychological barriers between self and others. This study highlights the potential for mindfulness in reducing defensive attitudes and increasing prosocial responsiveness across social lines.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1230/thumbnail.jp

Promoting Prosocial Responsiveness across Racial Divides through Mindfulness

In interracial and other intergroup interactions, prosocial emotions and actions are often undermined (Cikara & van Bavel, 2014). Perceiving psychological separateness between “us” and “them” – which is often an automatic, unintentional process – is psychological kindling for lower prosocial responsiveness that leads to prejudice, discrimination, aggressive conflict (Cikara, 2015). Recent research has shown that mindfulness, an open and unconditional attention to one’s present experiences, is associated with decreased automaticity and racial bias (Kang, Gruber, & Gray, 2013; Lueke & Gibson, 2014), barriers that hinder prosocial responsiveness (Trautwien, Schmidt, & Naranjo, 2014). Two experiments investigated whether brief mindfulness training promoted prosocial responsiveness toward an ostracized person of another race. Before witnessing a person of another race being excluded in an online ball-tossing game (Cyberball), participants in both studies were randomized to either an audio-recorded mindfulness training (MT), a structurally-equivalent attention control training (CT), or a no instruction control (NT). MI participants in Study 1 (N=124) showed trends towards higher empathic concern (p=.065), while MI participants in Study 2 (N=131) reported higher empathic concern for the excluded player (p\u3c0.05). MI participants in both studies wrote more comforting emails to them (p\u3c0.01), as coded for prosociality (c.f., Masten et al., 2011). Only in Study 2 did MI participants passed the ball more to the victim in an ‘all play’ game (p\u3c.05), presumably because their identity was less “known” than in Study 1; specifically, players’ photo images were loaded into the game in Study 1, but only first names were shared in Study 2. These studies underscore the potential for mindfulness training to foster sensitive attitudes across social and cultural lines within increasingly growing anonymous (i.e., online) contexts.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1222/thumbnail.jp

Dynamic communities in multichannel data: An application to the foreign exchange market during the 2007--2008 credit crisis

We study the cluster dynamics of multichannel (multivariate) time series by representing their correlations as time-dependent networks and investigating the evolution of network communities. We employ a node-centric approach that allows us to track the effects of the community evolution on the functional roles of individual nodes without having to track entire communities. As an example, we consider a foreign exchange market network in which each node represents an exchange rate and each edge represents a time-dependent correlation between the rates. We study the period 2005-2008, which includes the recent credit and liquidity crisis. Using dynamical community detection, we find that exchange rates that are strongly attached to their community are persistently grouped with the same set of rates, whereas exchange rates that are important for the transfer of information tend to be positioned on the edges of communities. Our analysis successfully uncovers major trading changes that occurred in the market during the credit crisis.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Chao

Wigner's little group and Berry's phase for massless particles

The ``little group'' for massless particles (namely, the Lorentz transformations $\Lambda$ that leave a null vector invariant) is isomorphic to the Euclidean group E2: translations and rotations in a plane. We show how to obtain explicitly the rotation angle of E2 as a function of $\Lambda$ and we relate that angle to Berry's topological phase. Some particles admit both signs of helicity, and it is then possible to define a reduced density matrix for their polarization. However, that density matrix is physically meaningless, because it has no transformation law under the Lorentz group, even under ordinary rotations.Comment: 4 pages revte

Signatures of Classical Periodic Orbits on a Smooth Quantum System

Gutzwiller's trace formula and Bogomolny's formula are applied to a non--specific, non--scalable Hamiltonian system, a two--dimensional anharmonic oscillator. These semiclassical theories reproduce well the exact quantal results over a large spatial and energy range.Comment: 12 pages, uuencoded postscript file (1526 kb

Toward semiclassical theory of quantum level correlations of generic chaotic systems

In the present work we study the two-point correlation function $R(\epsilon)$ of the quantum mechanical spectrum of a classically chaotic system. Recently this quantity has been computed for chaotic and for disordered systems using periodic orbit theory and field theory. In this work we present an independent derivation, which is based on periodic orbit theory. The main ingredient in our approach is the use of the spectral zeta function and its autocorrelation function $C(\epsilon)$. The relation between $R(\epsilon)$ and $C(\epsilon)$ is constructed by making use of a probabilistic reasoning similar to that which has been used for the derivation of Hardy -- Littlewood conjecture. We then convert the symmetry properties of the function $C(\epsilon)$ into relations between the so-called diagonal and the off-diagonal parts of $R(\epsilon)$. Our results are valid for generic systems with broken time reversal symmetry, and with non-commensurable periods of the periodic orbits.Comment: 15 pages(twocolumn format), LaTeX, EPSF, (figures included

Fluctuation of Conductance Peak Spacings in Large Semiconductor Quantum Dots

Fluctuation of Coulomb blockade peak spacings in large two-dimensional semiconductor quantum dots are studied within a model based on the electrostatics of several electron islands among which there are random inductive and capacitive couplings. Each island can accommodate electrons on quantum orbitals whose energies depend also on an external magnetic field. In contrast with a single island quantum dot, where the spacing distribution is close to Gaussian, here the distribution has a peak at small spacing value. The fluctuations are mainly due to charging effects. The model can explain the occasional occurrence of couples or even triples of closely spaced Coulomb blockade peaks, as well as the qualitative behavior of peak positions with the applied magnetic field.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PR

From Random Matrix Theory to Statistical Mechanics - Anyon Gas

Motivated by numerical experiments and studies of quantum systems which are classically chaotic, we take a Random Matrix description of a Hard-sphere gas to Statistical Mechanical description. We apply this to Anyon gas and obtain a formal expression for the momentum distribution. Various limiting situations are discussed and are found in agreement with the well-known results on Hard-sphere gas in low-density regime.Comment: 11 pages, Revtex, to appear in Physics Letters