Madison Meuler

Dehumanization Outline and Questions

3 Higher-Order Questions:

1. Within the case of the Native bias study, does dehumanization play a role in altering the
respondents’ perception of the type of famous alive or famous dead figures that they are
likely to name? (Figures associated with negative historical events, such as war, or
figures associated with positive social movements, such as Standing Rock?)
2. Would dehumanization exhibit different levels of prevalence/extremity between
collectivistic or individualistic cultures?
3. How large of a role does dehumanization play in contributing to other social biases? How
can dehumanization be distinguished from these biases? (Gender biases, racial biases, age
biases, etc.)

Outline:

Haslam examines dehumanization through a variety of lenses:

1. Ethnicity and Race

- Dehumanization: most often mentioned in relation to ethnicity, race, or related topics
(immigration and genocide).
- Historical examples of dehumanization: individuals of differing ethnic and racial
backgrounds have been painted as savages who lack culture, moral sensibility, cognitive
capacity, and self-restraint. A reoccurring theme of comparing such individuals to
animals has also been widely prevalent, and dehumanization is often observed during
genocidal conflicts.
2. Gender and Pornography
a. Widely prevalent in feminist writings is the understanding of pornography as being
dehumanizing through objectifying women, disregarding moral consideration, and
legitimizing rape and victimization.
b. The seven components of objectification: instrumentality, ownership, denial of
autonomy, inertness, violability, and denial of subjectivity.
c. Gender inequity closely tied with the dehumanization of women, as women are often
seen as the “lesser” being.
3. Disability
a. A historic tendency to dehumanize individuals with cognitive disabilities through
“organism metaphors.”
4. Medicine
a. Dehumanization can be observed through common medical practices as often
personal care lacks emotional support, relies heavily on technology, and places an
emphasis on efficiency and standardization.
 b. Haslam clarifies that this form of dehumanization is seen as “objectification,” as
patients are denied compassion and recognition of their autonomy. This additionally
extends to psychiatric evaluations and classifications.
c. Dehumanization is also seen as a method employed by doctors to cope with the
emotional distress of working with individuals who may be dying.
5. Technology
a. Mechanization of the workforce and the robotic pursuit of efficiency and automation
are inherently dehumanizing.
b. The metaphor likening the mind to a computer is dehumanizing as it directly neglects
the importance of the human brain’s flexibility, emotionality, and capriciousness.
6. Other Domains
a. Standardized testing/teaching, sports, dehumanizing descriptions of accused
criminals, pro-choice individuals being accused of dehumanizing the fetus, etc.

Psychological Accounts of Dehumanization

1. Delegitimization
a. Negative characteristics assigned to a given group with the hope of excluding them
from our understanding of humanity.
2. Moral Exclusion and Disengagement
a. Hostility generates violence by dehumanizing victims, eliminating a moral connection
to the victim and thus permitting violent behaviors.
b. Dehumanization as just one form of moral exclusion
3. Values
a. When an outgroup is perceived to have dissimilar values to the ingroup, it is
perceived to lack shared humanity and its interests can be disregarded.
4. Infra-humanization
a. Denial of “human essence” to outgroups from one’s own self.
b. Infra-humanization is subtle.

Two Senses of Humanness

1. Uniquely human (UH) characteristics define the boundary that separates humans from
related animals
a. Prosocial values involving morality
b. Primarily reflect socialization and culture
c. UH may not correspond to our shared humanity
d. Involve refinement, civility, morality, and higher cognition
e. A “romantic” sense of humanness
2. Human nature (HN): normative or fundamental characteristic that are central to humans
a. Link humans to the natural world and their biological dispositions
b. Normative, prevalent within populations, unique across cultures
 c. HN should be essential, viewed as fundamental, inherent, and natural

Haslam proposes the UH and HN are distinct senses of humanness, and thus, different forms of
dehumanization occur when the characteristics associated with each sense are denied to others.

Evidence in 5 Factor Model:

- High UH traits fell on positive and negative poles of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,

and Openness to Experience; temperament-based traits of Neuroticism and Extraversion
were rated low
- HN traits judged to be deeply rooted, immutable, informative, discrete, biologically
based, and consistently expressed across situations.

Two Corresponding Forms of Dehumanization

1. Animalistic: resembles infra-humanization, people are perceived as lacking what

distinguishes humans from animals.
a. Direct contrast between humans and animals
b. Represented as apes who contaminate and corrupt, they are often viscerally
despised
c. Vertical comparison on a hierarchal scale
2. Mechanistic: inertness, coldness, rigidity, and lack of agency.
a. Humans can be contrasted with machines
b. Implies indifference rather than disgust
c. Seen as displaced rather than “lower” or “downward”

Relational Cognition

- Communal sharing (CS): a sense of deep unity/solidarity with other members of their
group, an understanding of the group as a “natural kind,” and distinguish between “us”
and “them.”

Empathy

- “empathy disorders” often linked to mechanistic dehumanization, marked by a lack of

emotional depth, warmth, and prosocial concern.