@article{371,
  keywords = {loving-kindness meditation, implicit social cognition, positive intergroup attitudes, implicit association test},
  author = {Alexander Stell and Tom Farsides},
  title = {Brief loving-kindness meditation reduces racial bias, mediated by positive other-regarding emotions},
  abstract = {<p>The relationship between positive emotions and implicit racial prejudice is unclear. Interventions using positive emotions to reduce racial bias have been found wanting, while other research shows that positive affect can sometimes exacerbate implicit prejudice. Nevertheless, loving-kindness meditation (LKM) has shown some promise as a method of reducing bias despite increasing a broad range of positive emotions. A randomised control trial (<em>n</em>\&nbsp;= 69) showed that a short-term induction of LKM decreased automatic processing, increased controlled processing, and was sufficient to reduce implicit prejudice towards the target{\textquoteright}s racial group but not towards a group untargeted by the meditation. Furthermore, the reduction in bias was shown to be mediated by other-regarding positive emotions alongside increased control and decreased automaticity on the IAT. Non-other-regarding positive emotions conversely showed no correlation with bias. The study is the first to show that a short-term positive emotional induction can reduce racial prejudice, and aids the understanding of how positive emotions functionally differentiate in affecting bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)</p>
},
  year = {2015},
  journal = {Motivation and Emotion},
  volume = {40},
  number = {1},
  pages = {140{\textendash}147},
  publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},
  doi = {10.1007/s11031-015-9514-x},
}