Our humanity contains multitudes: Dehumanization is more than overlooking mental capacities

Fincher, Katrina; Kteily, Nour; Bruneau, Emile

doi:10.1073/pnas.1800359115

Cited by 26 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 8 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“… 1 Recent work, perhaps most notably by Rai et al ( 2017 ) and Over ( 2021 ), has challenged these longstanding assumptions about dehumanization’s role in violence. However, these critiques may have arrived at their conclusions based on operationalizations of dehumanization that fail to capture the breadth of the construct (Fincher et al, 2018 ). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Filthy Animals: Integrating the Behavioral Immune System and Disgust into a Model of Prophylactic Dehumanization

Landry

Ihm

Schooler

2021

Evolutionary Psychological Science

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The behavioral immune system (BIS) is an evolved psychological mechanism that motivates prophylactic avoidance of disease vectors by eliciting disgust. When felt toward social groups, disgust can dampen empathy and promote dehumanization. Therefore, we investigated whether the BIS facilitates the dehumanization of groups associated with disease by inspiring disgust toward them. An initial content analysis found that Nazi propaganda predominantly dehumanized Jews by portraying them as disease vectors or contaminants. This inspired three correlational studies supporting a Prophylactic Dehumanization Model in which the BIS predicted disgust toward disease-relevant outgroups, and this disgust in turn accounted for the dehumanization of these groups. In a final study, we found this process of prophylactic dehumanization had a downstream effect on increasing anti-immigrant attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, consistent with the evolutionary logic of a functionally flexible BIS, this effect only occurred when the threat of COVID-19 was salient. The implications of these results for the study of dehumanization and evolutionary theories of xenophobia are discussed. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40806-021-00296-8.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Filthy Animals: Integrating the Behavioral Immune System and Disgust into a Model of Prophylactic Dehumanization

Landry

Ihm

Schooler

2021

Evolutionary Psychological Science

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“…Ascribing sophisticated or simplistic mental faculties to others plays an important role in understanding dehumanization (Rai et al, 2017). Yet, dehumanization cannot be reduced to mere mind ascription (see Fincher et al, 2018). Future research would benefit both from investigating whether the time-to-release effects observed here occur for other senses of dehumanization, such as seeing prisoners as less evolved (e.g., Kteily et al, 2015) or likening prisoners to animals (Haslam, 2006), and from understanding whether the reduced dehumanization when approaching prisoner release would also ameliorate other punitive effects of dehumanizing beliefs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Theorists from multiple related literatures, such as infrahumanization (Leyens et al, 2007), dehumanization (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014), and mind perception (Waytz et al, 2010), all focus on the ascription or denial of fundamental humanlike capacities to others. These models share a focus on how humans have an emotional depth and experiential capacity that distinguishes them from automata, while also having sophisticated logical and self-regulatory capacities that distinguish them from animals (Haslam, 2006), although there are important conceptual distinctions among them (Fincher et al, 2018).…”

Section: On Dehumanizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dehumanizing Prisoners: Remaining Sentence Duration Predicts the Ascription of Mind to Prisoners

Deska

Almaraz

Hugenberg

2020

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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We tested the novel hypothesis that the dehumanization of prisoners varies as a function of how soon they will be released from prison. Seven studies indicate that people ascribe soon-to-be-released prisoners greater mental sophistication than those with more time to serve, all other things being equal. Studies 3 to 6 indicate that these effects are mediated by perceptions that imprisonment has served the functions of rehabilitation, retribution, and future deterrence. Finally, Study 7 demonstrates that beliefs about rehabilitation and deterrence may be the most important in accounting for these effects. These findings indicate that the amount of time left on a prison sentence influences mind ascription to the incarcerated, an effect that has implications for our understanding of prisoner dehumanization.

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“…However, as mentioned above, due to the hypersensitivity of the BIS such outgroups need not pose any actual disease threat to elicit disgust. arrived at their conclusions based on operationalizations of dehumanization that fail to capture the breadth of the construct (Fincher et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Prophylactic Dehumanization Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filthy Animals: Integrating the Behavioral Immune System and Disgust into A Model of Prophylactic Dehumanization

Landry¹

2021

Preprint

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Disgust and dehumanization both dampen empathy toward outgroups, and dehumanization also often involves representing the target as a disgusting animal. Therefore, we examined the relationship between disgust and dehumanization, documenting robust relationships between them in Americans’ evaluations of a variety of stigmatized groups (Studies 1-2). Since disgust is reliably elicited in the presence of disease threats, we then investigated its relationship with the dehumanization of Chinese people, a group stigmatized due to their association with the COVID-19 pandemic. Americans who felt more vulnerable to disease expressed more disgust toward, and dehumanization of, Chinese people (Study 3). In a final study, we found Americans’ disease concerns predicted their anti-immigrant attitudes, an effect wholly mediated by their disgust toward, and dehumanization of, immigrants. However, this only occurred when the threat of contracting COVID-19 was made salient (Study 4). We conclude that a constellation of disease concerns, disgust, and dehumanization can foment xenophobic attitudes.

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Our humanity contains multitudes: Dehumanization is more than overlooking mental capacities

Cited by 26 publications

References 8 publications

Filthy Animals: Integrating the Behavioral Immune System and Disgust into a Model of Prophylactic Dehumanization

Filthy Animals: Integrating the Behavioral Immune System and Disgust into a Model of Prophylactic Dehumanization

Dehumanizing Prisoners: Remaining Sentence Duration Predicts the Ascription of Mind to Prisoners

Filthy Animals: Integrating the Behavioral Immune System and Disgust into A Model of Prophylactic Dehumanization

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