The Missing Link: Ingroup, Outgroup and the Human Species

Abstract

Individuals tend to associate uniquely human features, for example the fact of feeling secondary emotions, more to ingroup than to outgroup. However, little evidence exists for a direct link between the concept of humankind and ingroup. In Study 1, participants were presented with pictures of humans and apes. Pictures were preceded by a supraliminal prime: names typical of ingroup versus outgroup. In Study 2, participants had to decide whether a string of letters represented a person name; names were typical of ingroup versus outgroup and preceded by a subliminal presentation of a human or monkey face. In both studies, faster latencies for human/ingroup than human/outgroup associations were found. An evaluative task confirmed no difference in valence between the human and animal face. Conclusions underline the importance of considering also the animal dimension in studying social cognition, and propose future avenues to identify variables shifting outgroup perception from infra-to dehumanization.According to evolutionary theory, humans developed from ape-like ancestors. A sort of transmutation happened between apes and humans through successive approximations from partially apes to partial humans. "The missing link" is a popular term meaning transitional forms from "lower" animals to humans. As far as social perception is concerned, individuals seem to rely on such a perspective in intergroup judgments. They perceive groups to which they belong as more prototypical of the human species, assigning a "missing link" nature to outgroups.Infrahumanization theory (Leyens et al.

Increasing outgroup trust, reducing infrahumanization, and enhancing future contact intentions via imagined intergroup contact

“…To the extent that infrahumaniziation is a widespread phenomenon with detrimental consequences on intergroup relations, we believe that systematically examining strategies that limit the denial of humanness to outgroups is of primary importance. Importantly, since people are often unaware of their infrahumanization tendencies (Boccato et al, 2008), these results help to rule out alternative explanations of imagined contact effects based on demand characteristics.…”

“…Denying humanness to the outgroup has pervasive detrimental effects on intergroup relations (e.g., Cuddy, Rock, & Norton, 2007;Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008;Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003). Notably, outgroup infrahumanization may be a result of automatic processes (Boccato, Capozza, Falvo, & Durante, 2008;Paladino et al, 2002), and can therefore be more difficult to change than blatant forms of discrimination. Initial evidence suggests that children can also exhibit the infrahumanization bias.…”

The Chain of Being

“…Moreover, the SCCB predicts that all of these processes are similarly embodied via a vertical metaphor that associates the ultimate good, righteousness, and the sacred as "high" and the ultimate evil and pollution as "low." Recent treatments of the psychological processes of dehumanization and anthropomorphism have focused on the attribution of personality traits and emotions that are more or less uniquely associated with humanity (e.g., Haslam, 2006;Leyens et al, 2001;; for some exceptions, see, e.g., Boccato et al, 2008;Capozza et al, 2009;Goff et al, 2008). The SCCB considers these traits and other uniquely human qualities as proxies for the underlying dimension of morality.…”

The uniquely human content of stereotypes

“…Loughnan, Haslam, & Kashima (2009) distinguished between "attribute-based" and "metaphorbased" dehumanization and studied their relationship. While the latter is defined as the direct association of the other with a non-human entity (animal, robot, or object) (e.g., Boccato, Capozza, Falvo, & Durante, 2008;Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008;Loughnan & Haslam, 2007), the former is closest to the classical approach used in dehumanization research (e.g., Haslam, Bain, Douge, Lee, & Bastian, 2005;Leyens et al, 2001) and consists in the denial of human characteristics when describing the other.…”