Fostering meaningful dialogue about racism and other social justice issues is an urgent need in our increasingly polarized society. We hypothesized that kindness meditation (KM) may help participants maintain social connection, develop compassion, positive affect and altruism, while enabling them to manage the stress, negative affect and bias that can arise and derail these conversations. To test this hypothesis, we assigned undergraduate women to one of three groups where they learned and practiced the critical conversations (CC) model for dialogue on racism and other forms of oppression. The intervention group learned KM as a form of self-care, the comparison group learned psychoeducational strategies for self-care (PE), and the control group (CON) received no intervention. In partial support of hypotheses, the KM group experienced a near significant reduction in negative affect and a significant protective effect against the increase in explicit bias observed in the control group following training. Our remaining hypotheses were not supported. Qualitative analysis of group dialogues and participant feedback showed that the CC model helped participants work together to develop an increasingly complex, nuanced, and intersectional understanding of oppression. Participants shared experiences, developed insights on their experiences, and gained support for disrupting oppression in their own lives.
Annemarie Gockel, PhD
Smith College
Grantee, Reviewer
Annemarie Gockel holds a B.A. in Western Society and Culture from Concordia University, an M.S.W. from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of … MORE
