Conclusions
REGRESSIONS, REGRESSION
In this RCT, we showed that app-delivered, mindfulness-based, and partner-based socioemotional practices can promote empathy and compassion for self and others. Thereby, the effects were stronger for state self-report measures than for task-based or dispositional measures, pointing to a lower dose-response relationship in those markers. In addition, we found differential mechanisms for practice effects on self-compassion. Although mindfulness practice takes effect via a decrease in empathic distress, changes in self-compassion after Affect Dyad training were associated with an increase in acceptance, which might be related to a more general activation of a motivational human care system. In sum, the findings support that app-delivered trainings such as these could be a promising scalable solution to boost social skills and, thus, mitigate the threats and challenges to social cohesion, mental health, and psychological well-being faced by societies worldwide.This study forms part of the CovSocial project headed by TS (principal investigator) and funded in majority by funds from the Social Neuroscience Lab of the Max Planck Society. TS and 5 other cooperation partners received a kick-off grant for phase 1 of the CovSocial project in 2020 funded through the Berlin University Alliance as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments (grant agreement 114_GC_Pandemie_23). The authors thank Marleen Borgert, Juliane Domke, Carmen Martinez-Moura, Birgit Severin, the 4 CovSocial teachers (Katharina Schacht, Cäcilia Krämer, Martin Büchele, and Oliver Kirchhof), and all researchers and student assistants at the Social Neuroscience Lab for their help in organizing, preparing, and collecting the data as well as implementing the intervention for this project.Conflicts of Interest: TS was a scientific and curriculum advisor and held advisory shares in Humanize from 2021 to 2023. Humanize is a start-up that is inspired by TS’s mental intervention research as well as her ReConnect Masterclasses focusing on dyadic interventions, including the Affect Dyad, and will be releasing modified and extended versions of these dyad intervention programs on a newly developed commercial digital platform and app. These additional offices of TS have all been formally approved by the Max Planck Society. All other authors declare no other conflicts of interest.Mental training intervention protocol for CovSocial phase 2: summary.A priori sample size calculation.CovSocial phase 2 sample demographics compared with phase 1 sample and the Berlin general population.CovSocial smartphone app.Descriptive statistics for theory of mind and factual reasoning split by measurement occasion and group.Correlations between behavioral and self-report measures.Mean plots of the empathic concern and perspective taking subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index in the socioemotional, waitlist socioemotional, and mindfulness-based intervention groups and the waitlist control group and group differences in intervention-related change. Means and SEs; significance level of (*) .10>α>.05.Indirect moderated mediation effects of slopes on change in outcome variables in the socioemotional and mindfulness-based mental trainings.Regression estimates of mediator slopes on outcome measures and group-moderated regressions.Indirect mediation effects of slopes on changes in outcome variables in the waitlist socioemotional training.Regression estimates of mediator slopes on outcome measures in the waitlist socioemotional mental training.Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) checklist.