Lecture 13: Dehumanization Flashcards
dehumanization
Perceptions of people as lacking the mental or physical capacities of regular human beings
Sumner on dehumanization
People have a tendency to view their group as real people and other groups as less than
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1856
Viewed Black people as property rather than humans
13th Amendment, 1868
Representatives…shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons…three-fifths of all other Persons.
Prince Harry & Dehumanization
“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.”
primary emotions include
happiness, pleasure, excitement, sadness
secondary emotions include
compassion, tenderness, bitterness, shame
subtle dehumanization involves
ascribing less secondary emotions to outgroups (for both positive and negative emotions)
subtle dehumanization experiment
Participants were presented with positive and negative primary and secondary emotions. They were told to circle words that best represented their ingroup or the outgroup. Found that people circled more secondary emotions for their ingroup but more primary emotions for their outgroup.
implicit dehumanization association study
Samples of students from first grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade completed an IAT measuring association between Spanish (ingroup) and Arab (outgroup) names with “human” (logic, mature) versus “animal” (wild, feral) words. All three samples of students showed ingroup/human, outgroup/Arab associations on the IAT.
implicit dehumanization single word study
Participants chose more animal-related words for the outgroup members than for the ingroup members.
Bandura’s blatant dehumanization study
- Participants supervised a 3-person group in the other room
- If the group made the wrong decision, give a shock
- Overheard the experimenter describe the group in humanized, dehumanized, or neutral terms
- Dehumanization leads to more aggression as measured by the intensity of shocks given
ascent of man measure
- Shows an inaccurate picture of how humans developed from apes
- Asks participants on a scale of 1-100 to indicate how evolved they consider each group to be
white American participants and extent of man scale
American participants rated South Koreans, Mexican immigrants, Arabs, and Muslims as less human on this scale
Blatant dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims leads to
- Immigration opposition
- Less helping
- Support militaristic aggression
- Drone strike support
(event after controlling for measures of explicit prejudice)
when does dehumanization occur?
Threats to the ingroup lead to more dehumanization
examples of threats leading to dehumanization
- There were more anti-Islamic hate crimes immediately following 9/11
- There was greater blatant dehumanization against Muslims immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing
blatant dehumanization
the extent to which one believes other people are less-than-human
meta-dehumanization
what is the effect of feeling as if you are being dehumanized?
dehumanization and meta-dehumanization can be seen as
a vicious cycle
Muslim dehumanization and Trump study
A survey of 200 Muslims found that on a scale of 1(did not feel dehumanized at all) to 7 (felt dehumanized intensely), Muslims felt, on average, to be dehumanized at 5.66 by Donald Trump
Muslims who felt more dehumanized by Donald Trump were:
- More likely to dehumanize Donald Trump
- More likely to support violent collective action
- Less willing to assist counter-terrorism efforts
were meta-dehumanization and dehumanization of Donald Trump correlated?
yes, strongly
can high-power groups feel meta-dehumanized
yes, high-power groups can also feel meta-dehumanized by minority low-power groups and reciprocate with dehumanization
WEIRD samples
Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic
motivation to express prejudice
Related to internal/external motivation to control prejudice. Recent research finds that some people have a real desire to express their prejudices.
reverse correlation
A new technique in the social psychology literature for trying to subtly measure the way people mentally represent other groups.
dehumanization of Muslims following the Boston Marathon bombing
The dehumanization of Muslims increased following the Boston Marathon bombing but went back down within 6 months
