Vox Article on Dehumanizations Flashcards
What do we find people rate other groups?
(Scale of animal to human)
Many people in these studies give members of other groups a perfect score, 100, fully human. But many others give others scores putting them closer to animals.
How does the article use evolution to explain dehumanization?
Thousands of years ago, humans would have felt a pang of anxiety when they saw the silhouette of a foreign tribe marching over a hill. We still have that anxiety inside of us today.
(We have negative knee jerk reactions to outgroups)
- especially true when we have quick, minimal exposure to them
How can we use dehumanization to break taboo actions?
If you think of murder and torture as universally taboo for other people, then dehumanization of the “other” is a psychological loophole that can justify them
Explain the study with 5 year olds with plastic-y people?
5-year-olds and showed them a series of pictures of faces. The pictures were of humans, humans digitally manipulated to look like plasticky dolls, or somewhere in between.
***When the kids were told they were looking at people from a foreign land, the number of images they considered to be human decreased
What parts of our brain activate when dehumanizing others?
when we dehumanize others, the regions of our brain associated with disgust turn on and the regions associated with empathy turn off
With the “Ascent of Man” tool, how do Americans rate other groups?
Americans rate other Americans as being highly evolved, with an average score in the 90s. But disturbingly, many also rated Muslims, Mexican immigrants, and Arabs as less evolved
What does the “Ascent of Man” tool reveal about how we categorize groups?
that perception of “otherness” is like a dial in our minds that can be turned on
people are willing to admit that they have relative scales of humanity in their heads.
What is dehumanization correlated with?
- blame Muslims as a whole for the actions of a few perpetrators.
- They are more likely to support policies restricting the immigration of Arabs to the United States.
- Higher SDO
- blatant dehumanization of Muslims and Mexican immigrants was strongly correlated with Trump support
What is dehumanization negatively correlated with?
support for Bernie Sanders
On a study of Muslim people, when asked to rate the dehumanization rate by Trump on Scale of 1 (none) to 7 (dehumanization), what was the result?
5.66, well beyond the halfway mark
What did they find when people felt dehumanized by trump?
The more Muslims felt dehumanized by Trump, the more they dehumanized Trump.
research predicts a vicious cycle. Trump’s policy and rhetoric gin up fear and dehumanize Muslim Americans. That provokes a more violent response from certain individuals in the Muslim community. Trump responds.
And suddenly the whole country is a more hostile, less safe place for everyone,
What did the article find about dehumanizing rhetoric in the Trump era?
dehumanizing rhetoric against Muslims is becoming more acceptable to Americans in the Trump era
A January 2016 poll conducted by Mogahed’s group found more than half of Muslim Americans experienced discrimination in the previous year
Most hate crimes since 2001
What was found in a study before and after the boston bombing? (“Ascent of Man” scale)
After the attack, blatant dehumanization of Muslims jumped up significantly.
Support for seeking vengeance and conducting drone strikes in Muslim countries grew too
How to break the cycle of dehumanization?
some Americans dehumanize Muslims because they think Muslims dehumanize us. But this assumption is wrong.
the Muslim world does hold a lot of admiration for American values
What was found when Americans read an article about how Muslim people admired them?
they didn’t dehumanize them as much on the Ascent scale
AND
It also helps to get white Americans to think through their hypocrisy.
In a study under review, Bruneau finds that when white people are asked questions such as, “Are all Christians responsible for the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church?” they begin to see the folly of blaming all Muslims for a single act of terror
What is the number one way to combat dehumanization?
simply getting to know people who are different from us.
