Perceiving the agency of harmful agents: A test of dehumanization versus moral typecasting accounts

Abstract

It is clear that harmful agents are targets of severe condemnation, but it is much less clear how perceivers conceptualize the agency of harmful agents. The current studies tested two competing predictions made by moral typecasting theory and the dehumanization literature. Across six studies, harmful agents were perceived to possess less agency than neutral (non-offending) and benevolent agents, consistent with a dehumanization perspective but inconsistent with the assumptions of moral typecasting theory. This was observed for human targets (Studies 1-2b, and 4-5) and corporations (Study 3), and across various gradations of harmfulness (Studies 3-4).Importantly, denial of agency to harmful agents occurred even when controlling for perceptions of the agent's likeability (Studies 2a and 2b) and while using two different operationalizations of agency (Study 2a). Study 5 showed that harmful agents are denied agency primarily through an inferential process, and less through motivations to see the agent punished. Across all six studies, harmful agents were deemed less worthy of moral standing as a consequence of their harmful conduct and this reduction in moral standing was mediated through reductions in agency. Our findings clarify a current tension in the moral cognition literature, which have direct implications for the moral typecasting framework.

Military veterans are morally typecast as agentic but unfeeling: Implications for veteran employment

“…We find that while heroes can be lauded for having admirable agentic traits, they are simultaneously seen as having less of a "mind" in terms of their ability to feel. This contrasts other work suggesting that people simply assign more of a mind and various positive traits to those who are seen favorably and less mind in general to those who are disliked (Heflick et al, 2011;Khamitov et al, 2016). Similarly, veterans were seen as higher on both dimensions of social perception (agency and communion), which both predicted morality, and neither predicted either form of dehumanization.…”

“…Despite (or perhaps even because of) the fact that we hold veterans in high esteem as heroic moral agents, moral typecasting predicts that people are likely to see veterans as capable of thinking but also as relatively unfeeling, emotionally unresponsive, and uncommunicative. This is another important test of the unique value of moral typecasting and mind perception, as other theories would instead predict that lauded groups are humanized on all dimensions, and disliked groups or objectified groups are dehumanized on all dimensions (Heflick, Goldenberg, Cooper, & Puvia, 2011;Khamitov et al, 2016).…”

Moral polarization and out-party hostility in the US political context

“…Indeed, nonhuman animals, robots, and objects are seldom the subjects of moral blame. While some work indicates that people dehumanize those deserving of punishment (Khamitov et al, 2016), recent evidence suggests that morally motivated perpetrators may also humanize others to justify aggression against them (Rai et al, 2017); a proposition consistent with earlier research showing that dehumanization renders people less susceptible to moral blame (Bastian et al, 2011). More-ideally experimen-tal-work is necessary to understand how political dehumanization relates to moral (or affective) polarization and behavioural expressions of out-party hostility.…”

Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence

“…To manipulate dehumanization, we drew on previous research that identified personality traits that are seen as highly humanizing, but which are counterbalanced for positive and negative valence. Specifically, in the humanized condition, the stranger was described as a 29-year-old man with brown hair and brown eyes named John, who is "ambitious and imaginative, but also high-strung and insecure", whereas in the dehumanized condition, the stranger was simply described as a "man" (48,49). Participants then rated their willingness to break the stranger's thumb and assessed the stranger's mental states.…”