Mindful attention reduces linguistic intergroup bias

Abstract

A brief mindfulness intervention diminished bias in favor of one's in-group and against one's out-group. In the linguistic intergroup bias (LIB), individuals expect in-group members to behave positively, and out-group members to behave negatively. Consequently, individuals choose abstract language beset with character inferences to describe these expected behaviors, and in contrast, choose concrete, objective language to describe unexpected behaviors. Eighty-four participants received either mindful attention instructions (observe their thoughts as fleeting mental states) or immersion instructions (become absorbed in the vivid details of thoughts). After instruction, participants viewed visual depictions of an imagined in-group or out-group member's positive or negative behavior, selecting the best linguistic description from a set of four descriptions that varied in abstractness. Immersion groups demonstrated a robust LIB. Mindful attention groups, however, exhibited a markedly tempered LIB, suggesting that even a brief mindfulness-related instruction can implicitly reduce the propensity to perpetuate stereotypical thinking through language. These results contribute to understanding the mechanisms that facilitate unprejudiced thinking.

Keywords: linguistic abstraction; linguistic expectancy bias; linguistic intergroup bias; mindfulness; prejudice; stereotypes.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests. The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1

Cartoon 1 is an example of a negative behavior performed by the main character labeled “A,” with four possible linguistic descriptions of the behavior listed below. These four descriptions are in order of increasing abstractness, corresponding to the levels of abstraction in the Linguistic Category Model (LCM). Cartoon 2 is an example of a positive behavior performed by character A, with its corresponding linguistic descriptions. Like the negative behavior cartoon, these descriptions also correspond to the levels of linguistic abstraction in the LCM. Cartoons reproduced with the permission of. Dr. Anne Maass.

Figure 2

Average linguistic abstraction scores for the four groups (immersion-friend, immersion-enemy, mindful-friend, mindful enemy) for each type of scene (positive, negative). Solid significance bars illustrate differences between groups representing the Linguistic Intergroup Bias (LIB). Dashed significance bars illustrate significant reductions in the LIB. * = p < .05. Standard error bars are +/− one standard error of the mean.