175 S. Schmidt and H. Walach (eds.), Meditation – Neuroscientific Approaches and Philosophical Implications, Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality 2, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01634-4_10, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 Abstract Recent theories and findings in psychology and neuroscience suggest that self and other are interconnected, both on a conceptual and on a more basic bodily- affective representational level. Such self-other connectedness is supposed to be fun- damental to empathy, social bonding and compassion. Meditation techniques – in particular mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation – have been found to foster these social capacities. Therefore, this contribution brings together both fields of research. In a first step, we examine self and other from the perspective of psychology and neuroscience, integrating findings from these fields into a dimension of mental func- tioning anchored to self-centeredness and self-other-connectedness, respectively. In a second step, we explore how mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation may act differentially upon this dimension. Finally, by referring to a recent experiment from our lab, it is illustrated how research hypotheses can be derived from this framework. Such investigations could help to comprehend meditation effects in the social domain, and more generally, further the scientific understanding of self and other. Introduction Meditation can be characterized as a kind of attention regulation which involves focusing on one’s inner experience while refraining from social interactions. During the last decade, the practice of meditation has attracted considerable research interest, Meditation Effects in the Social Domain: Self-Other Connectedness as a General Mechanism? Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, José Raúl Naranjo, and Stefan Schmidt F.-M. Trautwein (*) Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute of Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany e-mail: trautwein@cbs.mpg.de J.R. Naranjo • S. Schmidt Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany e-mail: joseraul.naranjo@uniklinik-freiburg.de; stefan.schmidt@uniklinik-freiburg.de