For healthcare professionals, practicing a healthful behavior oneself is a powerful predictor of counseling patients about these same self-care behaviors (e.g. exercise, wearing seat belts, etc).
The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is the perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of another's behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself.
It investigated if perceiving strong norms in favor of derogating against fans of outgroup teams, and engaging in these behaviors oneself, leads to an increased compartmentalization of these behaviors (i.e., such that they are restricted to a particular compartment within the self).
Further path analysis indicated that compassion meditation was associated with reduced mind wandering for unpleasant thoughts and increased mind wandering to pleasant thoughts, and that both were associated with increased caring behavior for oneself and others.
The effects of the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) program, a 9-week, twice daily compassion meditation, was found to reduce mind wandering towards neutral thoughts and increased caring behaviors for oneself.
Not only does this structured program seem to increase caring behaviors for oneself and others, data suggests that it can help improve people's emotion regulation and mindfulness, increase their feelings of calm and acceptance, and reduce some forms of mind wandering.
Researchers have identified several broadly defined behaviors that influence whether leaders are perceived that way.4 These behaviors include knowing oneself, appreciating one's constituents, affirming shared values, developing new capabilities, serving a purpose, and sustaining hope.
Sexual behaviors are any behaviors intended to pleasure oneself and/or one's sexual partner.
These include markedly peculiar behavior, like talking to oneself in public; social withdrawal and an inability to function as well as previously, and odd ways of speaking and thinking.
This is the first known study to lend partial support that formal compassion training reduces mind wandering while increasing caring behavior not only for oneself but also for others.
Imagery for the future is of particular clinical interest, as findings from experimental psychology tells us that imagining oneself completing a behavior may increase the likelihood of that behavior being accomplished (Libby, Shaeffer, Eibach, & Slemmer, 2007).
