Compassion Training and Mindfulness Training for Social Well-Being and Mental Health

Primary Aim and Hypotheses: The primary aim is to study the main effects of CCT and MBSR (vs. WL, and compared to each other) on self-report measures of participant social well-being (i.e., loneliness, social connectedness, and perceived social support). It is predicted that CCT will enhance social well-being compared to MBSR and to the WL, and that MBSR will enhance social well-being compared to the WL. Secondary Aim and Hypotheses: The secondary aim is to study the main effects of CCT and MBSR (vs. WL, and compared to each other) on self-report measures of participant mental health. This includes changes in positive mental health (i.e., happiness, positive emotions, and meaning and purpose) and negative mental health (i.e., stress, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms). It is predicted that CCT and MBSR will both increase positive mental health and both decrease negative mental health compared to the WL. It is hypothesized that there will be no differences between the effects of CCT and MBSR on participants' positive or negative mental health.