Abstract

In this study, in order to examine the effects of mindfulness meditation (MM) and loving-kindness & compassion meditation (LKCM) on healthy adult’s prosociality and antisociality, a meta-analysis was conducted by selecting 38 korean articles and dissertations up to October 3, 2022. Considering the three-arm design studies, 24 studies on MM and 19 studies on LKCM were selected. The quality of the study was evaluated for each of the MM study and the LKCM study, and the effect size of each meditation for prosociality and antisociality was synthesized. As moderating variables, publication status, control group type, semi-clinical group status, age, sex ratio within group, total intervention time (minutes), total intervention sessions (session), and total intervention period (weeks) were set. As a result of the meta-analysis, MM showed a large effect size in improving antisocial behavior, g = 0.876, but showed no significant effect size for prosociality, g = 0.407. In contrast, LKCM showed a moderate effect size in enhancing prosociality, g = 0.699, but showed no significant effect size for antisociality, g = 0.163. In this study, the differential effects of each type of meditation on prosociality and antisociality were discussed. As a result of the moderating effect analysis, all moderators were not significant. Additionally, the effect size of each type of meditation for each subcategory of prosociality (e.g., empathy, connectedness, forgiveness, and compassion) was synthesized. As a result, LKCM showed moderate effect sizes in enhancing all subcategories of prosociality, gs = 0.534 ∼ 0.795, but MM showed a small effect size only compassion, gs = -0.026 ∼ 0.473. Studies of MM on antisociality were found to be at high risk of publication bias, whereas the rest of the cases were not at high risk of publication bias. In the discussion, the results of the study were interpreted and implications and limitations were addressed.