ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1547645
Impact of Group Training on Compassion, Empathy, and Stigmatizing Thoughts: A Diversity Equity and Inclusion Pilot RCT
Provisionally accepted
- Lund University, Lund, Sweden
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The pilot study purpose was to examine the feasibility of a compassion-based Diversity Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) intervention by examining whether the RCT found increase in compassion and empathy, and decrease in stigmatizing thoughts and prejudice. The participants (N = 33) were randomized into two groups and the experimental group received compassion training and the comparison group lectures on prejudice and discrimination. The results showed increases for the experimental group in compassion, empathy and a tendency for decrease in stigmatizing thoughts. No reduction of modern prejudice was found. These results provide further evidence that compassion training can benefit adults and potentially suggest that compassion and empathy may function as mechanisms for reducing stigmatizing thoughts. Future research is needed to replicate the findings in larger samples to investigate its function as DEI-training in organizational settings.
Keywords: diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training, Anti-discrimination, compassion training, Empathy, stigmatizing thoughts, Prejudice
Received: 18 Dec 2024; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wolgast, Lunde-Flennmark, Nestorson, Wolgast and Hoff. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sima Nurali Wolgast, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
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