LIT 7 - Lang imprtance of dehumanisation Flashcards
What is the definition of dehumanisation? Lang
Dehumanisation is a social-cognitive process whereby people disregard the intentions and emotions of others. To be human, in this view, is to be someone whose thoughts and feelings matter. Dehumanisation turns humans into beings whose intentions, emotions and relationships are of no concern.
What is the ‘dehumanisation thesis’? Lang
The dehumanisation thesis claims that mass atrocities are enabled through a process that radically redefines the perpetrators’ perception of the victims, transforming the victims into beings whose thoughts and emotions are of no moral concern to the perpetrators.
What is ‘infrahumanisation’? Lang
Infrahumanisation is the subtle, indirect ways in which people attribute fewer human characteristics to members of some groups compared to others.
What is ‘blatant dehumanisation’? Lang
Blatant dehumanisation is the explicit denial of humanity.
What is ‘perceptual dehumanisation’? Lang
Perceptual dehumanisation is attending to isolated features of the face rather than perceiving the face as a whole. It is thought to ‘switch off’ our intuitive interpretation of other people’s thoughts and emotions.
What are some limitations of the dehumanisation thesis? Lang
- A growing number of scholars from a variety of disciplines are pointing out the theoretical and empirical limitations of dehumanisation.
- The dehumanisation thesis claims that mass atrocity is enabled through a process that radically redefines the perpetrators’ perception of the victims. However, another explanation is readily available: that a process of moral justification redefines the perpetrators’ perception of the violence itself. Often such justifications rely on allegations about the targeted group’s character and intentions that do not make sense in terms of dehumanisation.
- The importance of psychological dehumanisation has been exaggerated in the study of intergroup violence.
- Genocide and other forms of collective violence are not necessarily caused by weakening the perpetrators’ moral restraints against harming defenseless human beings, but by strengthening their justifications for doing so.
- Such justifications typically rest on claims about the intentions and desires of the alleged enemy. Perpetrators might not deem their victims worthy of compassion or concern, but this moral failure to care about the suffering of others does not presuppose a cognitive failure to recognise their humanity.
- The psychological concept of dehumanisation often does more to distort than illuminate the history of collective violence.
What is the difference between ‘instrumental violence’ and ‘moral violence’? Lang
- Instrumental Violence: Supporters of the violence do not desire to harm the victims but justify the victims’ deaths as a necessary means to an end.
- Moral Violence: Supporters of the violence actively desire to harm the victims and justify the violence as, for example, punishment or preemptive self-defense.
What is the relationship between dehumanisation and instrumental violence? Lang
Dehumanisation predicts, causes and is caused by instrumental violence.
What is the relationship between dehumanisation and moral violence? Lang
Dehumanisation plays no role in moral violence.
According to Rai et al., how does dehumanisation increase support for instrumental violence? Lang
Dehumanisation increases support for violence against victims by weakening moral inhibitions against harming others.
According to Rai et al., why is dehumanisation unrelated to moral violence? Lang
Dehumanisation is unrelated to moral violence because it would strip the victims of the very qualities that justified the violence against them.
What is the critique of Rai et al.’s findings? Lang
Critics respond that Rai et al.’s definition of dehumanisation is too narrow. They ignore the moral dimension of dehumanisation and thereby overlook its possible links to ‘moral violence’.
How do Rai et al. respond to the critique of their findings? Lang
They defend their definition as part of an attempt to bring scientific rigor to a field that ‘has been muddled by overly broad and imprecise definitions that potentially confound distinguishable psychological processes’. They argue that, by defining dehumanisation in this more restricted sense, ‘it is revealed that some of the worst atrocities originate from the recognition, rather than the denial, of humanity’.
What did Over emphasise about how members of ‘dehumanised’ groups are perceived? Lang
Over emphasised how members of ‘dehumanised’ groups are often denied pro-social mental states (e.g. kindness and compassion), while being attributed with others, such as greed, cunning and malice, or jealousy, spite and disloyalty.
What do the critics of Rai et al. call for? Lang
The critics of Rai et al. are essentially calling for a concept of dehumanisation capacious enough to encompass this dual process of negation and attribution.
