Empathy, Dehumanization, and Misperceptions: A Media Intervention Humanizes Migrants and Increases Empathy for Their Plight but Only if Misinformation About Migrants Is Also Corrected

Abstract

Anti-migrant policies at the U.S. southern border have resulted in the separation and long-term internment of thousands of migrant children and the deaths of many migrants. What leads people to support such harsh policies? Here we examine the role of two prominent psychological factors—empathy and dehumanization. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that empathy and dehumanization are strong, independent predictors of anti-migrant policy support and are associated with factually false negative beliefs about migrants. In Study 3, we interrogated the relationship between empathy/dehumanization, erroneous beliefs, and anti-migrant policy support with two interventions: a media intervention targeting empathy and dehumanization and an intervention that corrects erroneous beliefs. Both interventions were ineffective separately but reduced anti-migrant policy support when presented together. These results suggest a synergistic relationship between psychological processes and erroneous beliefs that together drive harsh anti-migrant policy support.

Harnessing Dehumanization Theory, Modern Media, and an Intervention Tournament to Reduce Support for Retributive War Crimes

“…This demonstrates the promise of applying insights from basic dehumanization research to promote peace (see also refs. 85,86 ).…”

“…Indeed, a major limitation of our approach is that, in curating media developed for purposes other than experimental research, our intervention contained a range of content beyond that assumed to be driving the observed effects. For instance, although we aimed to humanize Russian soldiers by highlighting their individuality, moral agency, and remorse, the Russian soldiers' descriptions of the hardships they suffered during the invasion may have evoked empathy-which also humanizes targets 57,86 .…”

“…affective and cognitive routes 57,86 , with the combination of both approaches proving particularly effective 86 . It is possible that a similar process occurred here, with the text promoting a cognitive reappraisal of "Russian soldiers" as a group and the video stimulating a visceral response to individual soldiers' expressions of remorse.…”

Intervention Tournaments: An Overview of Concept, Design, and Implementation

“…In the next section, we describe three distinct types of intervention tournaments that are based on either crowdsourcing (e.g., Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981; Bennett & Lanning, 2007; Forscher et al, 2020; Lai et al, 2014, 2016; Milkman et al, 2021; Uhlmann et al, 2019; see also WHO, 2020), curating (e.g., Bruneau et al, 2018; Moore-Berg, Hameiri, Falk, & Bruneau, 2022), or in-house development of interventions (e.g., Bruneau et al, 2022; Van Assche et al, 2020; see also Efentakis & Politis, 2006).…”

“…Note that in-house-developed intervention tournaments are not limited to testing different iterations of the same underlying intervention and can also include interventions that are based on completely different underlying mechanisms, which are tested against each other (e.g., Hameiri et al, 2018; Van Assche et al, 2020; Yokum et al, 2018) and sometimes against their combination (Kim et al, 2021; Moore-Berg, Hameiri, & Bruneau, 2022; Rosler et al, 2021). For example, Yokum et al (2018) examined the efficacy of different variations of letters that remind Medicare recipients to get the flu vaccine.…”