The surprising politics of anti‐immigrant prejudice: How political conservatism moderates the effect of immigrant race and religion on infrahumanization judgements

Abstract

Attitudes towards immigrants in the UK are worsening. It has been posited that these attitudes may reflect covert racial and religious prejudices, particularly among conservatives.To investigate this, two studies examined the role that immigrant race (Black/White; Study 1) and immigrant religion (Muslim/non-Muslim; Study 2) played in immigrant infrahumanisation judgements, using political conservatism as a moderating variable. There was a moderating effect of political conservatism; however, it was not in the predicted direction. The results of both studies indicated that immigrant race (Black) and immigrant religion (Muslim) predicted greater infrahumanisation when political conservatism was low.Conservatives infrahumanised all immigrants equally (and more than liberals), but liberals were more sensitive to racial/religious biases in their evaluations of immigrants.

No convincing evidence outgroups are denied uniquely human characteristics: Distinguishing intergroup preference from trait-based dehumanization

“…However, this explanation seems unlikely. Prior research has reported dehumanization of immigrants in multiple contexts ( Banton et al, 2020 ; Kteily & Bruneau, 2017 ; Markowitz & Slovic, 2020 ), showing this is the kind of group we should expect to see dehumanized should the process occur. We also chose a sample of self-identified right-wing Brexit supporters to maximise chances of detect dehumanization effects towards immigrants ( Markowitz & Slovic, 2020 ).…”

“…A possible defence of the dual model account could be to argue that we chose three intergroup contexts in which animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization does not occur. However, we chose to investigate judgements of political opponents, immigrants and criminals specifically because previous research has suggested that they are dehumanized on a range of measures ( Banton et al, 2020 ; Bastian et al, 2013 ; Markowitz & Slovic, 2020 ; Pacilli et al, 2016 ; Viki et al, 2013 ). In addition, we also showed in every experiment that outgroup members were explicitly rated as less human than were the ingroup on the blatant dehumanization scale ( Kteily et al, 2015 ).…”

“…Immigrant groups face systematic biases in multiple contexts, from discrimination by the police to employer hiring decisions, impacting important outcomes such as those relating to health and education ( Fernández-Reino, 2019 , Fernández-Reino, 2020 ; Kauff, Wölfer, & Hewstone, 2017 ). Furthermore, previous research has suggested that immigrants are often dehumanized, both blatantly, for example on the explicit dehumanization scale ( Kteily et al, 2015 ; Kteily & Bruneau, 2017 ; Markowitz & Slovic, 2020 ), and more subtly, by being denied human specific mental states ( Banton, West, & Kinney, 2020 ).…”

Intergroup preference, not dehumanization, explains social biases in emotion attribution

“…Seminal work has found that when choosing emotions to best describe different groups, people preferentially ascribe uniquely human emotions more strongly to ingroup members ( Leyens et al, 2001 ). For example, across a range of social contexts, participants ascribed uniquely human emotions such as hope, compassion, pride, melancholy, disappointment and remorse, to ingroup members to a greater extent than to outgroup members ( Banton, West, & Kinney, 2020 ; Cortes, Demoulin, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, & Leyens, 2005 ; Leyens et al, 2001 ; Paladino et al, 2002 ; Prati, Crisp, Meleady, & Rubini, 2016 ).…”

“…Infrahumanization research has proliferated in recent years ( Leyens, 2009 ; Vaes, Leyens, Paola Paladino, & Pires Miranda, 2012 ). Effects have been reported across explicit and implicit measures ( Boccato, Cortes, Demoulin, & Leyens, 2007 ; Paladino et al, 2002 ), and a multitude of intergroup contexts, including regional, religious and racial identities ( Banton et al, 2020 ; Rodríguez-Pérez, Delgado-Rodríguez, Betancor-Rodríguez, Leyens, & Vaes, 2011 ), university affiliations ( Vaes et al, 2003 ) and minimal groups ( Demoulin et al, 2009 ; Simon & Gutsell, 2020 ). The importance of the model is highlighted by the use of infrahumanization as an outcome measure in interventions to improve intergroup relations ( Brown, Eller, Leeds, & Stace, 2007 ; Capozza, Trifiletti, Vezzali, & Favara, 2013 ; Prati et al, 2016 ; Tam et al, 2007 ).…”