Annika Fuller

Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Graham, Steven

Area of Concentration

Psychology and Religion

Abstract

Countless studies have found that many Chrisitan individuals hold bias towards LGBQ individuals. Many more have concluded how detrimental this bias can be towards the physical and mental well being of people who identify under the LGBQ umbrella. Studies have began to find ways to decrease implicit biases, and some have found that loving-kindness meditation can be an effective tool to reduce specifically racial bias. There is little to no research on how loving-kindness meditation can reduce implicit LGBQ bias. The purpose of this study was to fill that gap by examining if loving-kindness meditaion can reduce implicit LGBQ bias in Christians. It was hypothesized that loving-kindness meditation would be able to significantly reduce LGBQ bias in Christians, that participants would score higher on the Inclusion of Others in the Self Scale after a loving-kindness mediation, that the level a participant believes in scripture would affect but pre and post-meditation measures of LGBQ bias, and finally, a participant’s church identify would affect their post-meditation LGBQ bias. Due to a lack of participants, only descriptive statistics were used. Participants’ homosexual bias means slightly decreased after a loving-kindness meditation, however, the average participants scored lower on the IOS scale after completing this meditation. Descriptive statistics showed that those who indicated a higher belief in scripture had greater levels of homosexual bias than those that believed it was a book of fables. It was also shown that participants who selected their church was open and affirming had lower levels of homosexual bias.

Download

Share

COinS