Evidence from an Experience Sampling Study about a Mindfulness Intervention Against Gender Bias

Gender bias is still a serious issue for organizations and their employees, harming women’s wellbeing and equal rights and costing organizations billions of dollars, e.g., due to turnover. Many of the current diversity interventions fall short in effectively addressing gender bias at the workplace because of only affecting bias for a short time or effects being influenced by social desirability. We address this important research need by conducting a pre-registered experience sampling study in which a representative sample of 410 German-speaking working individuals either engages in a daily, digital mindfulness exercise or in no treatment. Our findings indicate that a short mindfulness intervention can effectively decrease gender bias and that this effect was mediated by a decrease of negative emotions. Thus, the bias-reducing effect of mindfulness has the potential to improve the work lives of those who practice it, as well as the targets of gender bias.