Darker Demons of Our Nature: The Need to (Re)Focus Attention on Blatant Forms of Dehumanization

Abstract

One officer we interviewed told us that he personally has heard coworkers and supervisors refer to black individuals as "monkeys, animals, savages, and pieces of s***". .. Residents reported treatment so demeaning they felt dehumanized.-U.S. Department of Justice (2017) report on investigation of Chicago Police Department Explicit dehumanization has featured heavily in some of the darkest chapters of human history. Scholars suggest that the depiction of groups such as Africans, Native Americans, Tutsis, the Roma, and Jews (alongside others) as apes, savages, or vermin not only accompanied colonization, slavery, and extermination but facilitated these atrocities (Smith, 2011). Yet today, we tend to consider the overt dehumanization of other groups a relic of a distant past-far beyond the pale of our civilized modern societies. Here, we highlight recent psychological research raising doubts about such optimism. This work reveals that the tendency to overtly dehumanize other groups continues to be a relevant feature of contemporary society and suggests a pressing need to refocus research attention on blatant dehumanization to complement the existing emphasis on subtle and implicit forms of dehumanization and help us better understand how, when, and why we come to openly view other groups as less than fully human. A (Very) Brief Overview of Dehumanization Research In the wake of World War II, psychological research was drawn toward examining how conscious, overt dehumanization promoted the horrors of war and genocide. Kelman (1976) described how blatant dehumanization weakened restraints on humans' violent behavior by deindividuating victims, thus rendering them an undifferentiated mass. Bandura (1999) and Opotow (1990) similarly suggested that dehumanization lifted typical 708230C DPXXX10.

The unique effects of blatant dehumanization on attitudes and behavior towards Muslim refugees during the European ‘refugee crisis’ across four countries

“…We found that blatant dehumanization was significantly more strongly correlated with each of the outcome measures than subtle dehumanization (Steiger's Zs > 5.20, ps < .001), and subtle dehumanization remained a significant predictor of only two outcome measures (social distance, and anti-refugee policy support) once blatant dehumanization was accounted for. These results highlight the divergence between subtle and blatant dehumanization, and the importance of examining blatant dehumanization with respect to hostile responses (Kteily & Bruneau, 2017b).…”

“…Our findings make a number of important contributions. Although some prior work has considered the role of the subtle dehumanization (i.e., infrahumanization) of Muslim refugees on anti‐refugee attitudes (e.g., Esses et al, ; Leyens et al, ), we focused here on blatant dehumanization, an explicit and overt form of dehumanization that tends to be more strongly associated than subtle dehumanization with aggressive attitudes and behavior (see Kteily & Bruneau, ). Indeed, we observed here that blatant dehumanization was significantly more strongly correlated than infrahumanization with all attitudes and behavior.…”

Blatant Dehumanization of People with Obesity

“…Blatant dehumanization is theoretically important because explicitly removing a person’s humanity may cause, facilitate, and/or justify mistreatment . To date, blatant dehumanization has been studied largely in relation to interracial relations , where it is associated with support for policies that result in intergroup conflict .…”

The Dehumanization of Immigrants and Refugees: A Comparison of Dehumanizing Rhetoric by All Candidates in Three U.S. Presidential Elections

“…This has resulted in generational, chronic, and deadly health conditions such as disproportionately high rates of infant and maternal mortality (Villarosa, 2018). Furthermore, studies have shown that people who have dehumanizing attitudes toward Black Americans are more likely to support harsh criminal justice measures that disproportionately affect Black people, such as the Three Strikes Law and inequitably high prison sentences for crack cocaine use (Jardina & Piston, as cited in Kteily & Bruneau, 2017b). Racism and dehumanization are inextricably linked and persist in White American culture today.…”

“…Clearly, dehumanization has played a major role in atrocities of the past. However, it is still very present today and is far from rare or inconsequential (Kteily & Bruneau, 2017b). One of the most foundational studies in dehumanization theory is the Ascent of Man study by Kteily, Bruneau, Waytz, and Cotterill (2015).…”