Exploring the Potential for Mindfulness as an Intervention for Weight Bias
Carvalho, Keri.
2019
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Along with increased prevalence of overweight and obesity in the
United States, previous studies suggest that prejudicial attitudes toward
individuals with overweight and obesity are also increasing. Reports of weight
stigma and weight discrimination are on the rise, including in school, work, and
medical settings. Being a target of weight stigma can be psychologically and
medically detrimental, ... read moreparticularly when negative attitudes and stereotypes about
one's own weight become internalized. Therefore, it is necessary to target weight
bias in the general public before it can manifest into weight stigma. Previous
research has attempted to intervene with weight bias and weight stigma primarily
through three theoretical frameworks: social consensus, empathy training, and
educational reframing of genetic vs. personal attribution. However, there are
limitations to each of these approaches and the majority of literature shows they
have limited effectiveness in temporarily altering explicit weight bias. In other
social category literatures, such as racial bias literature, lovingkindness
meditation is emerging as a potential intervention for altering explicit and
implicit racial bias. However, it is unclear what the underlying mechanism may be
for differences in both explicit and implicit bias after a single session of
lovingkindness meditation. Therefore, the present studies explore the potential
role of state and trait mindfulness and compassion in racial and weight bias.
Study 1 investigated whether there are differences between long-term meditators
and non-meditators in their explicit and implicit attitudes toward race and
weight, as well as if there are any differences in their self-reported state and
trait mindfulness and compassion. Results showed no differences between meditators
and non-meditators in their implicit racial or weight bias, or their explicit
racial bias. However, meditators reported greater explicit weight bias than
non-meditators. Study 2 examined whether there were shifts in state mindfulness
and compassion from engaging in a single lovingkindness meditation, specifically
two meditation scripts that were slightly modified, but had previously been used
as lovingkindness interventions. Results demonstrated a null effect with both
compassion and state mindfulness increasing from time 1 to time 2 across all
conditions, including the control condition. Additionally, there were no
significant differences in compassion or state mindfulness across conditions at
time 2. Implications of these findings and considerations for future directions
are discussed.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2019.
Submitted to the Dept. of Psychology.
Advisor: Robin Kanarek.
Committee: Jessica Remedios, Adolfo Cuevas, and Rebecca Pearl.
Keywords: Experimental psychology, and Social psychology.read less - ID:
- 5h73q7771
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