Know Thy Selves: Learning to Understand Oneself Increases the Ability to Understand Others.

ABSTRACT: Understanding others' feelings, intentions, and beliefs is a crucial social skill both for our personal lives and for meeting the challenges of a globalized world. Recent evidence suggests that the ability to represent and infer others' mental states (Theory of Mind, ToM) can be enhanced by mental training in healthy adults. The present study investigated the role of training-induced understanding of oneself for the enhanced understanding of others. In a large-scale longitudinal study, two independent participant samples (N = 80 and N = 81) received a 3-month contemplative training. This training focused on perspective taking and was inspired by the Internal Family Systems model that conceives the self as being composed of a complex system of inner personality aspects. Specif

SUBMITTER: Bockler A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7089715 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature