Meditation May Help Reduce Racial Prejudice

Meditation may help reduce prejudice, according to a recent study.

Researchers at the University of Sussex found that just seven minutes of loving-kindness-meditation (LKM) directed to a member of a specific racial group, helped in reducing racial bias toward that group.

"This indicates that some meditation techniques are about much more than feeling good, and might be an important tool for enhancing inter-group harmony," lead study author Alexander Stell, said in a statement. "We wanted to see whether doing LKM towards a member of another ethnic group would reduce the automatic preference people tend to show for their own ethnic group."

During the study, researchers gave a photo of a gender-matched black person to a sample of 71 white adults who did not regularly meditate. They either received taped LKM instructions or instructions to look at the photos they received and noticed certain facial features. Both lasted just about seven minutes.

The researchers found that just seven minutes of LKM directed to a member of a specific racial group (in this case, a black person) was sufficient to reduce racial bias towards that group. However, there was no marked reduction in racial bias towards other groups.

Furthermore, the researchers measured levels of positive emotions that were either 'other-regarding', including love, gratitude, awe, elevation and those that were more self-directed, such as contentment, joy and pride; this revealed that people doing LKM showed large increases, specifically in other-regarding emotions. These other-regarding emotions were found to be what drives the reduction of bias.

The findings are detailed in the journal Motivation and Emotion.

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