Using Mindfulness Training as an Intervention Tool to Reduce the Essentialist Bias
Disciplines
Social Psychology
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Prior research has studied the mechanisms of socialization and how people interact. Social essentialism is the belief system that assumes people and objects have natural, distinct, and immutable characteristics. However, little research has shed light on how to reduce essentialist bias effectively and to alleviate its negative consequences in social life, such as prejudice against minorities, viewing members of other groups as less-worthy, or contributing to the construct of stereotypes. The current experiment aims to examine whether mindfulness meditation can reduce essentialist beliefs about social group members by raising awareness of the subjective boundaries imposed on the objective world and promoting an open mindset. We will recruit 100 KSU undergraduate students from SONA and randomly assign them to the mindfulness condition and the control condition. Essentialist beliefs will be measured by the social essentialism scale and the switched-at-birth task in four social domains (race, gender, political affiliation, and socioeconomic status). We predicted that mindfulness meditation would decrease essentialist beliefs about social groups and reduce support for boundary-enhancing social policies. The current research has important implications in using a low-cost, easy-to-implement intervention tool to combat the essentialist bias that people commonly uphold. Preliminary findings will be reported at the Symposium.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - Psychological Science
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Yian Xu
Using Mindfulness Training as an Intervention Tool to Reduce the Essentialist Bias
Prior research has studied the mechanisms of socialization and how people interact. Social essentialism is the belief system that assumes people and objects have natural, distinct, and immutable characteristics. However, little research has shed light on how to reduce essentialist bias effectively and to alleviate its negative consequences in social life, such as prejudice against minorities, viewing members of other groups as less-worthy, or contributing to the construct of stereotypes. The current experiment aims to examine whether mindfulness meditation can reduce essentialist beliefs about social group members by raising awareness of the subjective boundaries imposed on the objective world and promoting an open mindset. We will recruit 100 KSU undergraduate students from SONA and randomly assign them to the mindfulness condition and the control condition. Essentialist beliefs will be measured by the social essentialism scale and the switched-at-birth task in four social domains (race, gender, political affiliation, and socioeconomic status). We predicted that mindfulness meditation would decrease essentialist beliefs about social groups and reduce support for boundary-enhancing social policies. The current research has important implications in using a low-cost, easy-to-implement intervention tool to combat the essentialist bias that people commonly uphold. Preliminary findings will be reported at the Symposium.