New research out of the University of Sussex is finding that meditation can help to reduce people’s prejudice thoughts towards others.
The study examined whether or not short-term loving-kindness meditation (LKM) practices were able to reduce racial biases. LKM is a technique encompassing a tranquility meditation. It is used in order to train the mind to be calm and focused and puts emphasis on cultivating love. It is used as a way to develop compassion for oneself and others. It originally comes from Buddhist traditions but has been adapted and is practiced in various forms.
In this study, 71 participants of Caucasian descent were given a photo of a gender-matched individual of African-American decent. They either received instructions to look at the photo and describe certain facial features, or they were given the LKM instructions. Both situations took seven minutes. Following this, participants were asked to match positive and negative words to those within their own and different ethnic groups. An Implicit Association Test was used to evaluate reaction times of the participants while they completed this task.
Results determined that people were quicker to matcher positive stimuli to those of their own ethnic group and negative stimuli to other ethnic groups. However, participants who were in the LKM group did show reduced racial bias to the ethnic group they had been shown during the meditation. This reduced racial bias did not apply to different ethnic groups other than the ones shown in the picture during the meditation practice.
Alexander J. Stell, Tom Farsides. Brief loving-kindness meditation reduces racial bias, mediated by positive other-regarding emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 2015; DOI: 10.1007/s11031-015-9514-x