Scholarly discourse has raised concerns about the gravitas of secular mindfulness trainings in promoting prosocial outgrowths, as these trainings lack ethics-based concepts found in contemplative traditions. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to test whether mindfulness trainings absent explicit ethics-based instructions promote prosocial action. There was a range of small to medium standardized mean difference effect sizes of mindfulness training on overt acts of prosociality when compared with active and inactive controls, k = 29, N = 3,100, g = .426, 95% confidence interval (CI)( g) = [.304, .549]. Reliable effect size estimates were found for single-session interventions that measured prosocial behavior immediately after training. Mindfulness training also reliably promotes compassionate (but not instrumental or generous) helping and reliably reduces prejudice and retaliation. Publication bias analyses indicated that the reliability of these findings was not wholly dependent on selective reporting. Implications for the science of secular mindfulness training on prosocial action are discussed.

Background: Some individuals Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience working memory and inhibitory difficulties, others learning and memory difficulties, while some only minimal to no cognitive deficits for many years. Objective: To statistically derive PD executive and memory phenotypes, and compare PD phenotypes on disease and demographic variables, vascular risk factors, and specific neuroimaging variables with known associations to executive and memory function relative to non-PD peers. Methods: Non-demented individuals with PD (n = 116) and non-PD peers (n = 62) were recruited to complete neuropsychology measures, blood draw, and structural magnetic resonance imaging. Tests representing the cognitive domains of interest (4 executive function, 3 memory) were included in a k-means cluster analysis comprised of the PD participants. Resulting clusters were compared demographic and disease-related variables, vascular risk markers, gray/white regions of interest, and white matter connectivity between known regions involved in executive and memory functions (dorsolateral prefrontal cortices to caudate nuclei; entorhinal cortices to hippocampi). Results: Clusters showed: 1) PD Executive, n = 25; 2) PD Memory, n = 35; 3) PD Cognitively Well; n = 56. Even after disease variable corrections, PD Executive had less subcortical gray matter, white matter, and fewer bilateral dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex to caudate nucleus connections; PD Memory showed bilaterally reduced entorhinal-hippocampal connections. PD Cognitively Well group showed only reduced putamen volume and right entorhinal cortex to hippocampi connections relative to non-PD peers. Groups did not statistically differ on cortical integrity measures or cerebrovascular disease markers. Conclusion: PD cognitive phenotypes showed different structural gray and white matter patterns. We discuss data relative to phenotype demographics, cognitive patterns, and structural brain profiles.

Background: Web-based educational interventions are emerging as a potential solution to improving caregiver dementia knowledge and overall well-being. Objective: To assess the feasibility of delivering a web-based intervention for dementia caregivers by examining: 1) engagement with the online platform, 2) skill implementation, and 3) changes on outcome metrics over the 30-day study period. Methods: Enrolled participants were onboarded by a trained research coordinator and provided 24/7 access to the platform over 30 days. At study onset and completion, caregivers completed assessments of care recipient dementia severity and neuropsychiatric symptoms along with instruments which measured dementia knowledge, caregiver burden, and carer experience. Results: Of 84 referrals, 60 caregivers met study inclusion criteria and 55 completed pre and post study measures. Caregivers completed an average of 8 hours of learning over the 30-day web-based intervention, with 84.4%of participants reporting using at least one skill they learned from the online platform. Eighty-nine percent of participants reported high satisfaction with the web-based educational intervention. There were small effect sizes for decreases in NPIQ neuropsychiatric symptom severity and caregiver distress scores from pre- to post-intervention. Small effect sizes were observed for changes in caregiver burden from pre- to post-intervention among caregivers who perceived their care recipient as having high global deterioration. Conclusion: Findings show online educational programs are feasible for informal family caregivers of dementia and has perceived value. Future studies should address caregiver response to online education in less severe versus more severe care recipients, and explore the value of caregiver online platforms in diverse caregiver samples.

The United States is becoming more vulnerable to natural hazards mostly because of changes in population and national wealth density—more people and more societal infrastructure have become concentrated in disaster‐prone areas. For most of the 20th century, the United States has been largely spared the expense of a catastrophic natural disaster. A great earthquake (magnitude 8 or larger) has not struck a major metropolitan area since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. An extreme or catastrophic hurricane (Class 4 or 5) has not struck directly a major urban area since the one that hit Miami, Florida, in 1926. Yet even without such disasters, which might create losses well over $100 billion, the overall costs of natural hazards, such as extreme weather, drought, and wildfires, are estimated at $54 billion per year for the past 5 years, or approximately $1 billion per week [National Science and Technology Council, 1997].

We examined the construct of mental planning by quantifying digital clock drawing digit placement accuracy in command and copy conditions, and by investigating its underlying neuropsychological correlates and functional connectivity. We hypothesized greater digit misplacement would associate with attention, abstract reasoning, and visuospatial function, as well as functional connectivity from a major source of acetylcholine throughout the brain: the basal nucleus of Meynert (BNM). Participants (n = 201) included non-demented older adults who completed all metrics within 24 h of one another. A participant subset met research criteria for mild cognitive impairment (MCI; n = 28) and was compared to non-MCI participants on digit misplacement accuracy and expected functional connectivity differences. Digit misplacement and a comparison dissociate variable of total completion time were acquired for command and copy conditions. a priori fMRI seeds were the bilateral BNM. Command digit misplacement is negatively associated with semantics, visuospatial, visuoconstructional, and reasoning (p’s < 0.01) and negatively associated with connectivity from the BNM to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; p = 0.001). Individuals with MCI had more misplacement and less BNM-ACC connectivity (p = 0.007). Total completion time involved posterior and cerebellar associations only. Findings suggest clock drawing digit placement accuracy may be a unique metric of mental planning and provide insight into neurodegenerative disease.

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Objectives: Training in mindfulness has been found to have practical benefits for a range of interpersonal outcomes including prosocial action and emotion. Recently, theory has posited that mindfulness and contemplative trainings that include mindfulness practices may enhance intergroup compassion. Method: Here, we conduct a selective narrative review, drawing on the Buddhist concept skillful means to ask if mindful attention deployment presents an optimal starting point for intergroup compassion and action.Results: We report an interdisciplinary theoretical framework suggesting that mindfulness dismantles common intrapsychic challenges to intergroup prosociality. We describe empirical research on the effects of experimentally manipulated mindfulness in intergroup contexts. Specifically, mindfulness promotes basic social cognitive processes that allow intergroup prosociality to flourish.Conclusions: While this research is promising, we note that research to date has been limited to individual-level outgrowths of mindfulness practice. Discussion focuses on skillful means that might “bring out the best” in mindfulness training for the promotion of intergroup prosociality on a larger scale – that is, the societal level. We present big questions for the future of mindfulness research in intergroup prosociality and call for an integrative approach situating mindfulness within social psychological interventions to enhance intergroup compassion

In this paper, we review the recent literature on the debate over the value of self-enhancement. Past studies fall into two distinct sets, each in the context of a different research tradition. The componential approach to selfenhancement integrates these two divergent perspectives and takes seriously the interplay of self-perception and interpersonal perception. Instead of global indices, the componential approach identifies specific components of person perception. By partitioning the components in selfperception, the componential approach allows for better understanding of the dynamic interactive effects of selfenhancement bias and other components in self-perception on adjustment. We conclude the paper by discussing the emerging attempts to advance a componential approach to examine self-perception in terms of components and outcomes.