Empathy supports social connection and well-being while counter-empathy can weaken relationships and promote conflict. Compassion-based interventions such as loving-kindness meditation (LKM) have been shown to increase feelings of social connectedness and reduce self-focus. However, the impact of LKM on both empathy (measured through both positive and negative empathy) and counter-empathy (measured through schadenfreude and gluckschmerz) remains unexplored. The present study explored whether a brief, 9-minute LKM could increase empathy and reduce counter-empathy compared to a neutral visualization meditation. Forty-two undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either the LKM or control condition. As an implicit measure of empathy and counter-empathy, participants rated how good or bad they felt in response to 32 everyday scenarios both before and after the meditation. These ratings captured four outcomes: positive empathy, negative empathy, schadenfreude, and gluckschmerz. Results showed the LKM group experienced significantly greater increases in both positive and negative empathy compared to the control condition. Although both groups showed reductions in counter-empathy (both schadenfreude and gluckschmerz), these changes did not differ significantly amongst the groups. Exploratory analyses suggested that greater focus and adherence during meditation may be linked to lower counter-empathy. These findings demonstrate the efficacy of a brief loving-kindness meditation on significantly increasing empathy. Future research should explore how to best tailor loving-kindness meditations to effectively reduce counter-empathy.

Keywords: empathy, counter-empathy, loving-kindness meditation, schadenfreude, gluckschmerz, compassion intervention

Weight stigma remains a pervasive form of bias, even as explicit prejudice related to race and gender has declined. Ironically, healthcare providers are among the most frequent sources of weight-based discrimination, with consequences for patient trust, healthcare utilization, and treatment outcomes. To address this issue early in professional development, the present study tested a brief, theory-driven intervention targeting implicit and explicit anti-fat bias in premedical undergraduates. Grounded in cognitive dissonance theory and integrating elements of attribution theory, social identity, and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), the intervention included educational materials, a counterattitudinal essay, and a public pledge. Participants (n = 51) were randomly assigned to either an intervention or control condition and completed baseline and posttest measures of implicit bias (IAT), explicit attitudes (AFAT, BAOP), and internalized weight stigma (WBIS-M). Results revealed significant reductions in both implicit and explicit anti-fat bias in the intervention group compared to the control group, with medium-large effect sizes. These findings demonstrate that dissonance-based strategies, when supplemented with identity- and empathy-relevant content, can reduce bias even at the level of automatic associations. Keywords: cognitive dissonance, explicit attitudes, implicit bias, obesity, weight stigma

This study examined the degree to which jury instructions could modulate juror perceptions of anxious nonverbal behavior. More specifically, our experiment explored the relationship between the perceived nervousness of a defendant, assessments of credibility, and trial outcomes. The results of the study revealed that instructions had no statistically significant effect on verdicts or ratings of credibility. Affect appeared to influence trial outcomes regardless of jury instruction type. In addition, the credibility of the defendant mediates the relationship between perceived nervousness of the defendant and verdicts (ACME = 0.049, p < 0.001). A nervous defendant was perceived as less credible, resulting in more guilty verdicts. Moreover, for each one-unit increase in defendant credibility, the probability of a guilty verdict decreased by approximately 6.19 percentage points, holding other factors constant (p < 0.05). Despite being instructed to not consider nonverbal behavior, jurors failed to follow the instructions or overcome their cognitive bias as it relates to nonverbal cues typically associated with deception.