Researchers can’t seem to get enough of mindfulness these days. Studies have linked it to heightened creativity, improved concentration, lower stress, better working memory, and increased compassion. Now, new research also shows that it helps us overcome biases we’re not even aware we have.
The study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, suggests that mindfulness meditation can reduce implicit bias—and the negative behaviors that it causes.
There are competing definitions of what mindfulness means, but it boils down to paying attention to what’s happening around you at any given moment, instead of operating on autopilot. By concentrating on the present, you’re more likely to act thoughtfully, and therefore less likely to succumb to automatic reactions based on previously established experiences.
Older studies have connected mindfulness with reduced automatic processing and less prejudicial behavior, but researchers Adam Lueke and Bryan Gibson found that mindfulness can also lessen implicit bias. Implicit attitudes are based on automatic associations, and they influence behavior more than we realize. Even as we assert egalitarian values or condemn discrimination, automatic processing often colors how we evaluate and treat others.
Lueke and Gibson explain that a group who listened to a 10-minute mindfulness exercise exhibited less bias on the race and age implicit association tests (IATs) than those who didn’t—without even focusing on the biases themselves.
The 72 participants were white college students who didn’t know what was being studied beforehand. The test group listened to a recording that made them aware of their heart rate and breathing. It told them to accept these sensations and thoughts “without restriction, resistance, or judgment.” The control group listened to a 10-minute recording about history. Then both groups completed the race and age IATs, which captured response times in pairing positive or negative words with black or white faces and then with old or young faces.
The mindful group showed less implicit racial and age bias than did the control group, and this was, in part, due to a reduction in the automatic activation of negative associations (i.e., black-bad, old-bad). This confirmed older research that mindfulness makes one less reliant on previously established associations. But the researchers were surprised to also find that the mindful group was less able to see differences between the faces than the control group, which seems to suggest that when you’re less likely to automatically associate black and old with “bad,” race and age are also less detectable.
The ability to curb implicit bias and weaken negative associations by simply being more mindful could help prevent all kinds of negative effects. Previous research has shown how implicit out-group bias can make someone more likely to shoot at a black suspect in a simulation or become more aggressive in a video game.
Implicit attitudes even predict some negative behaviors in the workplace better than explicit attitudes. For example, they are more predictive of discriminatory hiring decisions, lack of trust in out-group members, and hostile body language toward stereotyped group members. As Lueke explained, “People high in implicit bias will tend to maintain distance, not make as much eye contact, fidget, remain terse in their responses, and generally give non-verbal cues that are indicative of discomfort.” And this happens even if they consciously want to communicate in a non-biased way.
So how do you become more mindful? We often have other things on our mind regardless of whether we are at work or not; our to do lists, that date we went on the night before, mulling over that crazy episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ we saw, wondering what we are going to have for dinner tonight. Silencing and focusing these thoughts is a practice. But even if you’re busy, there are really basic steps you can take—anywhere, anytime—to make you more aware of the present. Simply stop, bring your mind into the moment it is in, right here and you will feel yourself get present. Like any muscle though, challenge is strengthening that ability through consistent use.
Past experiences have a way of influencing our decisions and immediate reactions in ways we don’t fully understand and may not even realize. It’s important to acknowledge this and find ways of making ourselves less reliant on them. For more information on this visit: www.LivingFromChoice.com
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