The following is an excerpt of the intervention methodology. For more information, please see the full text of the article on the publisher's website or through your institution's library.

METHOD

Participants A total of 141 undergraduate students from Central Michigan University participated in the study [...] in their introductory psychology courses. [...] The data from a remaining group of 118 participants was utilized in the analyses. [...]

Materials

The reading passage [...] was utilized in Phase I of the experimental procedure solely as a means to deceive participants about the true intent of the research. [...]

The video The Lunch Date (1989) was used in Phase II of the experimental procedure as the primary stimulus tool for activating stereotypes about African Americans. [...]

Procedure [...] A random numbers table was used to assign participants to one of three experimental conditions (high mindfulness, low mindfulness, or control). [...] The research assistant and informed consent forms communicated to participants that the purpose of the research was to examine different entertainment orientation styles, particularly the differences between levels of enjoyment for reading versus watching films/videos. Participants were told they would read a short story passage and then watch a short video. Following each, they were asked to respond to various questions on the response sheets provided [...]. In order for the high and low mindfulness groups to follow the mindfulness instructions for the reading passage and the video, they were stopped once during each task for an average of five minutes each time. [...] Mindfulness participants were asked to write down their beliefs about what they thought had just occurred in the plot. Both groups were also asked to jot down two alternative interpretations for each of their original beliefs. [...] In order to ensure methodological consistency across all groups, the control group was stopped during the reading passage and video at the same time as the experimental groups. At those times, they were asked to write down their thoughts about how much they liked/disliked the story and video. [...] Lastly, all groups were administered the Video Likability Measure a second time following completion of the video. This was done in order to assess to what degree the groups’ responses about the African American target would change given he is vindicated at the end of the video. [...]

Dependent Measures

Recall Measure As a manipulation check for the mindfulness treatment, all groups were tested for recall accuracy with the Recall Measure. [...]

Social Distancing Scale The first scale of three that was introduced in the Video Likability Measure was the Social Distancing Scale. It consists of two questions in forced-choice format. In the first question, participants were asked to imagine they were going to have new neighbors move in next to where they live. [...]

Attribution Scale The second prejudice scale presented in the Video Likability Measure was the Attribution Scale. It consists of two questions in forced-choice format. The first question asks whether the woman behaved the way she did in the video because of either: (a) who she was as a person or, (b) the situation she was in. The second question is similar to the first except that it addresses the man in the video. [...] The current study used a forced-choice format rather than a Likert scale because it was believed such a format would make it easier for participants to respond. [...]

Trait Scale The third scale participants completed in the Video Likability Measure was the Trait Scale. It was used to assess prejudice levels through measuring the degree to which participants endorsed negative stereotype traits typically associated with African Americans. [...] A Reading Likability Measure was administered following the reading passage and before presentation of the video and the Video Likability Measure to distract the participants from the true intent of the study. [...]