Kang Yoona, Gray Jeremy R, Dovidio John F
Department of Psychology, Yale University.
Department of Psychology, Michigan State University.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2014 Jun;143(3):1306-1313. doi: 10.1037/a0034150. Epub 2013 Aug 19.
Although meditation is increasingly accepted as having personal benefits, less is known about the broader impact of meditation on social and intergroup relations. We tested the effect of lovingkindness meditation training on improving implicit attitudes toward members of 2 stigmatized social outgroups: Blacks and homeless people. Healthy non-Black, nonhomeless adults (N = 101) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: 6-week lovingkindness practice, 6-week lovingkindness discussion (a closely matched active control), or waitlist control. Decreases in implicit bias against stigmatized outgroups (as measured by Implicit Association Test) were observed only in the lovingkindness practice condition. Reduced psychological stress mediated the effect of lovingkindness practice on implicit bias against homeless people, but it did not mediate the reduced bias against Black people. These results suggest that lovingkindness meditation can improve automatically activated, implicit attitudes toward stigmatized social groups and that this effect occurs through distinctive mechanisms for different stigmatized social groups.
尽管冥想越来越被认为具有个人益处，但对于冥想对社会和群体间关系的更广泛影响却知之甚少。我们测试了慈悲冥想训练对改善对两个受污名化社会外群体成员（黑人与无家可归者）的内隐态度的效果。健康的非黑人、非无家可归的成年人（N = 101）被随机分配到三种条件之一：为期6周的慈悲冥想练习、为期6周的慈悲冥想讨论（一种紧密匹配的积极对照）或候补名单对照。仅在慈悲冥想练习条件下观察到对受污名化外群体的内隐偏见（通过内隐联想测验测量）有所降低。心理压力的减轻介导了慈悲冥想练习对针对无家可归者的内隐偏见的影响，但它并未介导对黑人偏见的减少。这些结果表明，慈悲冥想可以改善对受污名化社会群体的自动激活的内隐态度，并且这种效果通过针对不同受污名化社会群体的独特机制而产生。
