Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Implicit Age and Race Bias The Role of Reduced Automaticity of Responding

Adam Lueke; Bryan Gibson

doi:10.1177/1948550614559651

Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Implicit Age and Race Bias

The Role of Reduced Automaticity of Responding

¹Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI, USA

Adam Lueke, Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, Sloan Hall 101, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859, USA. Email: lueke1a{at}cmich.edu

Abstract

Research has shown that mindfulness can positively affect peoples’ lives in a number of ways, including relying less on previously established associations. We focused on the impact of mindfulness on implicit age and racial bias as measured by implicit association tests (IATs). Participants listened to either a mindfulness or a control audio and then completed the race and age IATs. Mindfulness meditation caused an increase in state mindfulness and a decrease in implicit race and age bias. Analyses using the Quad Model showed that this reduction was due to weaker automatically activated associations on the IATs.

Article Notes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.