Brief Compassion Training Reduces Intergroup Psychological Barriers: An Experimental Study

A single-blinded randomized design was employed. Two hundred twenty-three participants (n = 223) completed the baseline questionnaire. They were randomly assigned to either the compassion condition (watch a 20-min video on guided compassion practice) or the attention control condition (watch a 20-min video on rock formation). Experimenters monitored participants’ attentiveness. A post-experiment questionnaire was administered immediately afterwards. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) were used for outcome analyses. The independent variables included experimental conditions (compassion vs. attention control), timepoint of the measurement (pre-experiment, post-experiment), and interactions between these variables. Outcome variables included negative outgroup emotions and attitudes, social distance, and donation behavior towards three outgroups (ethnic minorities, Mainland immigrants, people with opposite political views).