Across three studies, we test the hypothesis that the perceived “humanness” of a human face can have its roots, in part, in low-level, feature-integration processes typical of normal face perception—configural face processing. We provide novel evidence that perceptions of humanness/dehumanization can have perceptual roots. Relying on the well-established face inversion paradigm, we demonstrate that disruptions of configural face processing also disrupt the ability of human faces to activate concepts related to humanness (Experiment 1), disrupt categorization of human faces as human (but not animal faces as animals; Experiment 2), and reduce the levels of humanlike traits and characteristics ascribed to faces (Experiment 3). Taken together, the current findings provide a novel demonstration that dehumanized responses can arise from bottom-up perceptual cues, which suggests novel causes and consequences of dehumanizing responses.
According to much research, the Own Group Bias (OGB) in face memory occurs as a consequence of social categorization – ingroup members are more likely than outgroup members to be encoded as individuals and remembered well. The current work is an examination of the role of anticipated future interaction in the OGB. We conducted two studies showing that anticipated interaction influences group-based face memory. In Study 1, we provided correlational evidence that beliefs about the amount and importance of future interaction one will have with racial outgroup members is associated with the OGB, such that people expecting more interaction with outgroup members show a reduced OGB. In Study 2, we manipulated expectations about future interactions with lab-created groups and observed that high levels of anticipated future interaction with the outgroup eliminated the OGB. Thus, social group categorization drives face memory biases to the extent that group membership affords the expectation of interpersonal interaction.
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