From Dissonance to Compassion: Does a Loving-Kindness Meditation Amplify Joy Mimicry and Attenuate Reactive Frowns to Disgust?

Emotional mimicry—the imitation of others’ emotions—fosters social bonding, but only when an affiliative emotion aligns with its context. We tested whether a brief Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) could broaden affiliative responsiveness to both congruent and incongruent emotional displays. In an online study (N = 214), participants watched targets expressing joy or disgust in scenes that were either contextually congruent (e.g., smiling at a funny clip, showing disgust at a disgusting clip) or incongruent (e.g., smiling at a disgusting clip, showing disgust at a funny clip). Facial muscle activity was recorded via OpenFace and subjective ratings of closeness and appropriateness were obtained. We found mimicry combined with high closeness ratings only for joy in a matching context, whereas incongruent and antagonistic displays evoked disapproval rather than affiliation. Critically, LKM increased mimicry to congruent joy and reduced frowning responses to incongruent disgust, without altering appropriateness judgments or perceived closeness. These findings demonstrate that even a brief LKM can selectively boost mimicry of context-appropriate affiliative emotions and temper reactive disapproval when negativity violates social norms, highlighting LKM’s potential to foster empathy in emotionally discordant situations.