The duty invites you once again on the side roads of university life. A proposition that is both scholarly and intimate, to be picked up all summer like a postcard. Today, we’re kicking off the season with a reflection on prejudice.
We are all racist, homophobic, sexist, ageist, etc. I’m not trying to shock anyone, but simply to state a fact: we all have prejudices. That is to say mental biases (often unconscious) that push us to respond to a person based on their membership in a social, ethnic, gender group, etc., and not on an individual basis.
I include myself in the mix. A few months ago I had to have surgery. Without knowing anything about the surgeon, I felt a small wave of anxiety when I learned he was from the Philippines. Very unfounded anxiety given that the operation went wonderfully.
The problem is that accumulated on a human scale and over time, these biases have massive harmful consequences for some of us. In Canada, trans and non-binary people are three times more likely to consider attempting suicide than cisgender people. In the United States, the life expectancy of black people is four years shorter than that of white people. In Germany, for equal qualifications and professions, women’s salaries are 6% lower than men’s.
I could go on for a long time, social inequalities are omnipresent.
The second problem is that these biases are deeply rooted in our human nature. As a professor-researcher specializing in the psychology of intergroup relations, it pains me to realize that after years of work on the issue and on myself, I still have this kind of biased reaction.
Fortunately, to overcome our prejudices, there is a promising avenue that I want to talk to you about today: attentive presence (mindfulness in English).
What do we mean by attentive presence? It is a state in which we pay attention to our experience of the present moment, intentionally and without judgment. To illustrate, let’s take the moment when I learn about the origin of the surgeon. If I am attentively present, I may notice that my heart rate has suddenly accelerated and I feel a knot in my stomach. Perhaps I will mentally label this feeling with one word, “anxiety,” without going into catastrophic scenarios calling into question the surgeon’s competence, or castigating myself for my racist reaction.
Our willingness to be in attentive presence varies. Some of us do it more easily and more often than others. Nevertheless, it is a state that can be cultivated through contemplative practices. We often think of meditation, but contemplative practices can also include yoga, certain forms of prayer or certain dialogue circles. This cultivable aspect is what makes attentive presence so promising as a lever for action.
Coming back to prejudice, what does research tell us about the protective role of mindful presence?
Researcher Doris Chang and her team conducted a meta-analysis on the question. They carried out a systematic compilation summarizing the results of 72 scientific studies, published in the prestigious international scholarly journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
The results are encouraging. In general, people with a greater tendency toward mindful presence report less prejudice toward people different from themselves. Additionally, taking part in an intervention cultivating mindful presence (e.g., a meditation program) leads to a reduction prejudices.
An interesting detail to note: interventions are more effective in improving discriminatory behaviors (for example, being discourteous towards someone because of their skin color) than biased attitudes (for example, thinking that a person will be less competent because of their sexual orientation). This is good news, given that our behaviors are more likely to create harm than our thoughts or emotions.
Be careful, this is not a miracle cure! The effects listed in this meta-analysis were medium in size. This means that while mindful presence can diminish prejudices, it will not completely dissolve them.
Furthermore, the reduction in prejudice achieved by an attentive presence intervention does not maintain itself in the long term. We are sold mindfulness in every way to improve different areas of our lives, from sexuality to our diet to our performance at work. We are more rarely told that developing and maintaining an attentive presence on a daily basis is a long-term commitment.
There also remains the structural and systemic dimension of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Without entering into a debate on the systemic question, it would be naive to believe that meditating on a daily basis will resolve social inequalities. Attentive presence is not a panacea.
In the meantime, it is a low-cost cultivable posture. Certainly, attentive presence requires our good will and effort. You have to come back to it, a little every day. But if it can contribute to a society with a little less prejudice, it’s a worthwhile effort.
For my part, I intend to persevere in this direction. A few months ago, I had the option to ask for another surgeon — it was a possibility in this specific case. I am proud that I did not do it. Maybe, in a few years, for another operation, I will not even feel anxiety if the surgeon comes from a different background than me.