Class 12 Flashcards
What is Dehumanization?
Perceptions of people as lacking the mental or physical capacities of regular human beings
What does Sumner say on Dehumanization?
“We alone are people. The meaning of the name Kiowa is “real or principle people”. The Lapps call themselves “men” or “human beings”… As a rule it is found that peoples call themselves “men”. Others are something else–perhaps not defined–but not real men. In myths the origin of their own group is that of the real human race. They do not account for the others.”
Basically: ppl in own group = real human beings
- Everyone else is lesser (religion, race, gender, etc)
Older Approaches to Measuring Dehumanization
primary / secondary emotions
Granting everyone “primary emotions”: Happiness, Pleasure, Excitement, Sadness,
Denial of “secondary” emotions to outgroup: Compassion, Tenderness, Bitterness, Shame
How does prince Harry use Dehumanization to kill ppl?
On Killing 25 Taliban fighters…
“While in the heat of combat, I didn’t think of those 25 as people. You can’t kill people if you think of them as people”
What is the Subtle Dehumanization:
- Ascription of “Human” Emotions
Primary Emotions (e.g., “fear, panic”) vs. Secondary Emotions (e.g., “remorse, embarrassment”)
- Ascribe less secondary emotion to outgroups
*Occurs for both positive and negative emotions!
Participants were presented with positive and negative primary emotions (happy, angry) and secondary emotions (content, resigned). They were told to circle words that best represented their ingroup (Canarians) or the outgroup (Spaniards)
How did they respond?
Gave more secondary emotions to fellow Canarians
Less Subtle Dehumanization study
More or less human based on place or origin?
Sample: 5 year olds
Task: How many are human? (all dolls)
Manipulation: The faces are from a foreign land or not
Result: When the kids think they’re foreign, less images are considered ‘human’
How can we measures Implicit Dehumanization “human” (logic, mature) versus “animal” (wild, feral) words?
IAT measuring association between Spanish (ingroup) and Arab (outgroup) names with “human” (logic, mature) versus “animal” (wild, feral) words
showed ingroup/human, outgroup/Arab associations on the IAT
follow up study asked students to “connect” each name (either Spanish or Arab) with a single word (human or animal). Participants chose more animal-related words for the outgroup members
How was “Blatant” Dehumanization shown in a study by Bandura ?
Participants “supervised” 3-person group in other room
* If group made wrong decision, give shock
Overheard experimenter…
*Humanized: group is “perceptive & understanding”
*Dehumanized: group is “animalistic, rotten bunch”
*Neutral: No description
FOUND: Dehumanization lead to more aggression (as measured by intensity of shocks given)
What is the “Ascent of Man” Measure?
How evolved is = group (on evolution scale)
How did ppl rate other groups on the “Ascent of Man” Measure?
- Rates other groups (considered very different then Americans) low on this scale
- Europeans (and Japanese/Australia) rated higher
What is Blatant dehumanization a predictor of?
Blatant dehumanization remains a predictor of policy beliefs after controlling for measures of explicit anti-Muslim prejudice
When Does Dehumanization Occur?
Threats to the ingroup -> more dehumanization
What is the relationship between subtle dehumanizing, blatant dehumanization, and prejudice?
They are Related…but distinct
What is Meta-Dehumanization?
Meta-Dehumanization:
Blue ppl: I think that Green people see my group as if we were a bunch of animals
Blatant Dehumanization:
I think Blue people are savage brutes
How is Dehumanization as a ‘Vicious Cycle’?
(Trump and Muslim example)
*Dehumanization and meta-dehumanization can then create a vicious cycle.
*Survey of 200 Muslims (told them):
- “Donald Trump sees people from Muslim backgrounds as sub-human”
- “Donald Trump thinks of people from Muslim backgrounds as animal-like”
*On a scale of 1 (Did not feel dehumanized at all) to 7 (Felt dehumanized intensely), average = 5.66
SO
Muslims who felt more dehumanized were:
- More likely to dehumanize Donald Trump
On ascent of man
Muslims who felt more dehumanized were:
- More likely to dehumanize Trump… and
More likely to support “violent collective action”
Less willing to assist counter-terrorism efforts
ratings of Meta-Dehumanization (how much u think other dehumanizes u) and Dehumanization of Donald Trump (on a 7 point scale)
Were they correlated?
Yes!
r = .68; strong correlation
Can high power groups feel meta-dehumanized?
Across multiple studies Kteilyand his colleagues also find that privileged high power groups feel meta-dehumanized by minority low power groups, and reciprocate with dehumanization
Recent Advances in Dehumanization:
What did Jeff Yang, Author and journalist find?
ppl see Asian ppl as “ We’re robots who can only copy and clone and grub and grind…”
Asian ppl are often portrayed as robots in films etc
Explain Blatant ‘Mechanistic’ Dehumanization?
Same as ascent to man but with robots
What is different about how Asian and Black people are discriminated against?
Asian:
- Associated more with mechanics
Black:
- Associated more with primates
What are the implication for hiring Black and Asian applicants?
Even if some qualification, asian people are favored with mechanistic jobs
black people are favored over asian in non mechanistic job
When people asked rate jobs/crime on mechanization vs animalistic traits what did they find?
had people estimate whether certain professions and certain crimes were more likely to be occupied or committed by Asian versus Black people
Crimes and professions that were more likely to be viewed as “Asian” were rated by Chat GPT as more ”machine-like”, while those viewed as ”Black” were rated as more ”animalistic”
How did people apply discrimination research in the field:
Christian and Muslims
Trying to reduce conflict between christians and muslims
- They found dehumanization in the area
So they developed an intervention=
- Vicarious contact (radio program w/contact between Christian + Muslim character)
- Did test runs to see if it impacted prejudice
- Found: Less report for inter-religious violence
Also integrated this to Nigeran talk show
